[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[RohanV]

Personally I am of the opinion that the two communities aren't that different from each other. You'll find bad players and jerks in both, but I feel like WoW's community is just more open about being a jerk. Idk, I play solo most of the time, and the most I do is lfr in wow and normal/alliance raids in 14.

I think the biggest difference is that FFXIV's community is more willing to work through wipes in PuGs. Especially in trials, it's not unusually to wipe a couple of times before everyone understands the fight.

[dope_danny]

They only time I personally have Roulette issues ALWAYS seems to be The Vault and ALWAYS seems to be with undergeared tanks.... don't know why that in particular.

For me its a first time, undergeared tank wanting to pull the entire first winding path of bardams mettle. They always think they can do it and only end up wasting time compared to doing two or three pulls.

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I think the biggest difference is that FFXIV's community is more willing to work through wipes in PuGs. Especially in trials, it's not unusually to wipe a couple of times before everyone understands the fight.

Theres a lot of things i can compare and complain about WoW compared to FFXIV in terms of games design but the playerbase one -and it started around wrath with the dungeon finder and never got better- was the idea of "well we wiped once, time to leave the group, even if it means a debuff". I have never seen that behaviour in any game like WoW. At least in FFXIV's case the sprout icon and a simple "okay who doesnt know this fight?" works wonders but still lately i'll see some people say "i'm new but want to learn, please dont spoil this boss" because this deep into an expansion everyone else knows their role enough that a wipe has to be something like a healer dc or something and thats never a reason to ragequit. Especially if it was a long queue.

[Kaelwryn]

I think the biggest difference is that FFXIV's community is more willing to work through wipes in PuGs. Especially in trials, it's not unusually to wipe a couple of times before everyone understands the fight.

mhm, I've definitely had a few runs in wow where even after multiple wipes people stayed but I feel like people are a lot quicker to leave after the first or second wipe. 14, usually people stick around but there's still a few people who will dip immediately. As a whole, I think most people are willing to fix kinks or...atleast willing to throw themselves at the problem repeatedly.

To touch a bit on what dope_danny said, normally i wait until a wipe before saying "ok does anyone need an explanation?" because I know some people want to see the fight the first time themselves and most of the time you can get by with one or two people being new and blind to the fight. For Savage and Extreme Trials, I understand being less forgiving about that but for anything else I'm fine with giving people a chance to see things without explanation first and then if we wipe, go over what needs to be corrected.

[Faroth]

Theres a lot of things i can compare and complain about WoW compared to FFXIV in terms of games design but the playerbase one -and it started around wrath with the dungeon finder and never got better- was the idea of "well we wiped once, time to leave the group, even if it means a debuff". I have never seen that behaviour in any game like WoW. At least in FFXIV's case the sprout icon and a simple "okay who doesnt know this fight?" works wonders but still lately i'll see some people say "i'm new but want to learn, please dont spoil this boss" because this deep into an expansion everyone else knows their role enough that a wipe has to be something like a healer dc or something and thats never a reason to ragequit. Especially if it was a long queue.

Had a sprout running Neverreap recently and we didn't tell him any of the fights, we just started doing them. On the totems fight, there was a point where they typed ??? but the rest of us were still doing it. We handled an add popping up. Next round, they type "Oh! You gotta get the totems out of that circle right?" and replies were just "Yep!" and "Yeah, if we don't, they turn into that add and gotta kill it." If we had any issues, I'd have explained it up front, but everything seemed super smooth (other than me tanking in some less than stellar spots forgetting tornado paths -- woops) so I hadn't.

I personally love seeing fights blind and figuring them out. Drives one of our FC members nuts since they want to read up and watch videos on everything before going into any of the content.


One of my first dungeon runs back after a break in WoW was a 1 wipe and tank dropped, resulting in the group disbanding. It was disheartening to see the "well 1 error = go back in queue for 30+ minutes" situation, but I didn't have any issues after that. Honestly most of my return visit in Legion was pretty pleasant, though I will note that dungeon runs through Party Finder were 100% dead silent more often without even the cordial hellos at the start.


I've also noticed an uptick in people not realizing MSQ didn't let you skip cut scenes (or that they got more xp than they used to) as they were long lapsed returners. And a lot of new people running dungeons for the first time, or at least first time on that character.

[Fappy]

I know a lot of healers are upset about the job updates, but I am very happy about what they have done for the jobs I main (SMN & RDM). The redesign to Summoner especially looks great.

[Katchii]

They only time I personally have Roulette issues ALWAYS seems to be The Vault and ALWAYS seems to be with undergeared tanks.... don't know why that in particular.

The Vault, I think, is just at that weird gear/ mob transition point in Heavensward where the mobs get a big increase in health and damage and the tanks are expected to be geared well enough to handle it, but the character themselves is still leveling up and doesn't have their full kit or gear yet.

The dungeon is also a pretty rough one for healers, especially that last boss. Both the tank and healers need to be on point for it to be a successful run.

There's merits and challenges to both approaches. I can't say for sure which I prefer. I remember recruiting for raiders back in CoB days was fucking aids trying to find, but I do remember enjoying the experience of sequential raids:

• A player who is the job you need
• A player who is as skilled as you need
• A player who is progressed and doesn't need to be caught up
• A player who is on your realm, or would be willing to transfer

This was back when you didn't have xrealm raiding. It really was fucking terrible. With xrealm allowed now, I wonder if going back would still be painful.

Yeah the progression requirement on the sequential raids will be the sticking point. Finding the right person to fill a spot in a lter raid would feel amazing and you'd feel really lucky about it, and the opposite would be true too...having a newbie finding a group willing to back and help them progress through the prequel raids o get to the point where they're actually progressing in current content.

I think overall, that relationship is a healthy one because it kind of forces the players to work together to help each other out. The current WoW paradigm that feels like the new raid completely eclipses and obsoletes the previous one doesn't really encourage that same community feeling in the same way.

As you said, they both have pros and cons, but long term I think the sequential raids design feels better, both story/ lore wise and community building/ teamwork.

LMK when you start playing again. I'll tank for you. I'm on Behemoth (Primal). I think you might be on my friends list, or at the least I remember we grouped once.

We grouped together in early Stormblood when Extreme Lakshmi was current, because that was the fight we did. Was a good time.

I have a sub going right now, but rarely sign on. I have all the classes at 70 (except crafting and gathering, blech), have finished up all the main and side story content, have completed the normal raid, Alliance raid, and have no blue "+" quests (except the leve quest in Kugane, which is only for crafters and gatherers anyway) left to be completed. My quest log is empty.

There's nothing really left that I care to do except the Namazu beast tribe quest just to finish that reputation and subsequent beast tribe story quest...and I'm not particularly worried about that. It will still be around later. Maybe bird or doggo farm, but I'm not all that enthused to grind the shit out of content for RNG drops, though that Kyuubi mount is pretty awesome.

The only other activity that I could do is grind for tomes to buy level 60 tome gear for Dancer and Gunbreaker, but normal gear will suffice just fine for them since I'll likely be leveling them through HoH and the odd roulette, so that seems pointless.

I haven't decided which I'll level first, Dancer or Gunbreaker. Gunbreaker looks awesome, but I'm quite intrigued by Dancer and have a feeling a well played Dancer will be in demand for content later on.

Fair enough, I was simply curious. How do you feel about FF14's current seasonal approach? Do you like it better than ARR's sequential? A new raid invalidates the old one immediately. Many other forms of content almost immediately negates others too.

While the new raid invalidates the old one as soon as it's released, you still have to complete the previous raid at least once to unlock the new one. I'm fine with that approach.

As for new dungeons almost completely invalidating the old ones, I think that's pretty dumb given the overall FFXIV approach. If they capped ilevel in the dungeons to a relatively low cap to still make them somewhat challenging while still providing drops that matched the highest ilevel dungeon drops (at least in all the dungeons released at max level, leveling ones are fine as is, though this process could still apply).

There are some dungeons I've seen only the one time I needed to run it to unlock it for the roulette, and then never again. I spent most of my time in Stormblood leveling alts, so I rarely did the Expert roulette, I just made sure i completed the quests and unlocked everything that dropped in each patch before going back to alt job leveling.

Just be very careful, while I can't recall any examples in WoW (positive or negative), I can absolutely recall numerous examples in FF14 where people have given downright false information, or at best outdated/no longer accurate. It happens at what I would consider an alarming rate.

I've seen this in both games. I don't pay that much attention to it as in either game I'm usually out in the world doing stuff so don't see city chat often to be part of where most of this occurs. That said, I think because I honestly see more people actually providing information in chat in FFXIV vs WoW (where a lot of times it's just snarky remarks and not ACTUAL information), I see more misinformation in FFXIV.

It's one of those things where I wish the game was clearer about a lot of its features/systems so that it wouldn't perpetuate misinformation.

Totally agreed. I bought a friend of mine the complete edition of FFXIV as a gift and am now helping him through the game, where it's actually possible for me to play with him and help out. He's no stranger to MMOs, having played WoW for years, but there are a LOT of examples where I have to provide clarification or even straight up descriptions and guidance on how certain things in this game work that are not clearly explained...or explained at all.

I take for granted the weeks right after launch where everyone was figuring stuff out and sharing information that wasn't clear for just basic game features, and the time I've been playing since then where I found a neat trick or shortcut that improves the experience just that little bit more.

It's mind blowing how many little things there are that distract from truly enjoying the game.

Nah, definitely not easily triggered. You know this from the shield lob incident. I gave that dude the WHOLE dungeon to turn it around.

Ironically enough, high end pugs are some of the best experiences I have in FF14. Less common in WoW for me, but they're still there. High End pugging is a really nice place because everyone has the exact same expectations and knows how to judge skill, and communicate and there's no oh Joey's wife is our friend, so we bring her in, despite her being 16th percentile at best.

I'll agree here, high end like minded PuGs are very enjoyable. My issue is that by the time I'm usually geared enough to participate and really want to try them out, the new raid or content is out and the good, fun players have moved on and I'm stuck trying to fit in with the dregs who'll accept me. And that is NOT fun.

It's like traveling. I don't know very many people (translated: zero) who will gush about how much they love the ACTUAL traveling bit: packing, buying plane tickets/booking the trip and dealing with those logistics, getting to the airport, getting on and being on the plane...but pretty much everyone I know will tell you how much they LOVED being at their destination.

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I know a lot of healers are upset about the job updates, but I am very happy about what they have done for the jobs I main (SMN & RDM). The redesign to Summoner especially looks great.

Completely agreed. I'm excited for both SMN and RDM, but with how the game play looks for Gunbreaker, I'm still having difficulty choosing what class to level first. I already have accepted the fact that the first few days into the expansion will be dedicated to me leveling both Dancer AND Gunbreaker, if not to 70, at least far enough to get a good grasp on which i'll enjoy more.

[Onikaroshi]

Fair enough, I was simply curious. How do you feel about FF14's current seasonal approach? Do you like it better than ARR's sequential? A new raid invalidates the old one immediately. Many other forms of content almost immediately negates others too.

I really don't see it as as much of a problem with XIV in that XIV handles old content a lot better, in my opinion obviously. Also, yes, if you're caught up you can just move on to the next raid and never look back, but when you first level a new role and don't have a lot of gear or tomestones around you can actually make a case for needing to do older content because you won't have the ilvl to do the newer stuff.

[Usernameforforums]

I wonder if another crossover event will be announced at E3? The Monster Hunter World crossover was announced there last year, after all.

The nier automata raid is a crossover. It’s already been announced.

[Granyala]

They only time I personally have Roulette issues ALWAYS seems to be The Vault and ALWAYS seems to be with undergeared tanks.... don't know why that in particular.

Well vault is one of the first dungeons where the bosses have pretty heal intensive mechanics.
So I can see some tanks underestimating it.

Shouldn't be much of a problem with a competent healer, I healed that @i120 back when I leveled at the start of Heavensward. Dicey but doable.

Ironically enough, high end pugs are some of the best experiences I have in FF14. Less common in WoW for me, but they're still there. High End pugging is a really nice place because everyone has the exact same expectations and knows how to judge skill, and communicate and there's no oh Joey's wife is our friend, so we bring her in, despite her being 16th percentile at best.

Heh, I'd never make it into one of these. I don't take the game seriously enough for that.
Good to know they exist though.

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I know a lot of healers are upset about the job updates

As a WHM I didn't see any changes worth mentioning except rather extreme homogenization (WHM basically gets SCHs Aether flow mechanic as a gimmick including indo and revi).

"How ... unimaginative." /Zoltun Kulle

[dope_danny]

I know a lot of healers are upset about the job updates, but I am very happy about what they have done for the jobs I main (SMN & RDM). The redesign to Summoner especially looks great.

my main heal job is AST and honestly it looks like its gotten dumbed down to get people who weren't playing it to try it to spite those of us who enjoy it as is now, but i get the feeling the healers are going to change again before the years over since we've been down this road with things like the anti movement BRD/MCH period.

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Just got an email saying they finally charged me for the physical collectors edition and aside from BotW's its the first big pricey special edition for a game i've bought since Wrath of the Lich Kings. Have they actually confirmed how early access works for physical this time? i registered the code for the gremlin pet and xp boost heirloom earrings like two months ago so is that just going to count as adding the license?

[Onikaroshi]

my main heal job is AST and honestly it looks like its gotten dumbed down to get people who weren't playing it to try it to spite those of us who enjoy it as is now, but i get the feeling the healers are going to change again before the years over since we've been down this road with things like the anti movement BRD/MCH period.

See, this was brought up in a podcast and I kind of agree with the sentiment of that cast. Ast 6 cards... but of those cards 3 you didn't really want ever (ewer, bole, spire) and would reroll out of them or just use them for RR. Then there was Balance, the ultimate, the best card ever! You want this thing. And then there is second rate balances (Arrow, Spear) and if you get stuck with them they're ok to use but you just don't feel good over using them instead of the all mighty balance.

So if they just nerfed balance then one of the other cards takes over as the new balance...

The only way to really fix the card system was to make them all DPS equally (which they did) or just make them all support. One could argue on which is better all day, but the card system was never going to last as it was.

[Nathasil]

I will also say that I feel like in general, when it comes to like answering questions, people are more polite in 14. In WoW, most of the time when I see someone ask for help in general chat, you're usually mocked, told to google it or (rarely in my experience) actually get helpful advice. In 14, most people are usually happy to be like 'oh you do x, y and z'.

That was not always the case in WoW, though. I was around since the beginning in the Eu and in classic, where many quests were not self-explanatory and even settlements/zones were sometimes not easy to get to...people were totally willing to help each other. But i agree, that at some point it stopped. Maybe it was when the guide-sites like WoWhead became so good that explaining it yourself instead of looking it up would just be a waste of time...maybe it was when Blizzard dumbed most of these "puzzles" down so much that existing players became depressed by questions about the current game because even thinking about how it used to be compared to now was too painful.

Or maybe it is just a set amount of years a game has existed when the community shifts from "I will gladly help you!" to "This is an old game, you should know this shit!"

I know that i, personally, am FAR less helpful in WoW now than i was 10-15 years ago. I don't like it. I often think about it, especially when guildies ask for help and nobody really feels like helping them...i wonder "yeah, in days past people would have helped...YOU would have helped...why don't you feel like doing it anymore?". I cannot really explain it. But it absolutely is the case and i see the same behaviour in other players all the time.

[Onikaroshi]

That was not always the case in WoW, though. I was around since the beginning in the Eu and in classic, where many quests were not self-explanatory and even settlements/zones were sometimes not easy to get to...people were totally willing to help each other. But i agree, that at some point it stopped. Maybe it was when the guide-sites like WoWhead became so good that explaining it yourself instead of looking it up would just be a waste of time...maybe it was when Blizzard dumbed most of these "puzzles" down so much that existing players became depressed by questions about the current game because even thinking about how it used to be compared to now was too painful.

Or maybe it is just a set amount of years a game has existed when the community shifts from "I will gladly help you!" to "This is an old game, you should know this shit!"

I know that i, personally, am FAR less helpful in WoW now than i was 10-15 years ago. I don't like it. I often think about it, especially when guildies ask for help and nobody really feels like helping them...i wonder "yeah, in days past people would have helped...YOU would have helped...why don't you feel like doing it anymore?". I cannot really explain it. But it absolutely is the case and i see the same behaviour in other players all the time.

It used to depend on server lol, Mannoroth was a toxic cesspool, we never talked outside of guild.

[MrTharne]

Just did a Ghimlyt Dark where a full 380 DRG didn't enter Life of the Dragoon a single time and was last dps during the full duration of the dungeon (reset before each boss).

[Granyala]

It is.
Although you need a second screen and Netflix subscription to even attempt to master it.

[Isilarya]

How goes everyones Itinerant Moogle farming? I have so many things i would like to buy but i feel like Syrcus is going to burn me out before i can farm that much.

[MrTharne]

How goes everyones Itinerant Moogle farming? I have so many things i would like to buy but i feel like Syrcus is going to burn me out before i can farm that much.

MSQ + Raid roulettes gives 5 (bonus 1 if lvl roulette gives one of the good dungeon), so let's say you'll get 150 before ShB launch (4weeks + some lucky leveling roulette).
I just want the Pegasus and the Answers scroll after that either one of the two birbs or the direwolf. The rest I don't really care.
So I don't really need to farm more than the roulettes.

Leveling Jobs with Command Missions is driving me crazy because of Brayflox being the only dungeon available between 32 and 41...

[dope_danny]

How goes everyones Itinerant Moogle farming? I have so many things i would like to buy but i feel like Syrcus is going to burn me out before i can farm that much.

I've not bothered, i think the primal mounts are the only thing i'm missing and i'm not farming Castrum Meridianum over a 5 minute fight.

[Gibblewink]

There was some mention of going 4 BLU and destroying Tam Tara for the Itinerant Moogles. But in all seriousness go with whatever you feel is best on the day as you'll get less tokens by burning out than doing a "slower" grind.

[Granyala]

How goes everyones Itinerant Moogle farming? I have so many things i would like to buy but i feel like Syrcus is going to burn me out before i can farm that much.

Thankfully that little bugger offers nothing of consequence to me.
I got my riding maps when I cleared the BLU Carnivale.