[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[StrawberryZebra]

Personally I miss the days of it being perfectly acceptable to use lower item level gear because of your stat distribution.

Just to be clear on it, the difference in stats is a staggering 225 Intelect. Thats roughly the equivelent of being able to equip an extra item. The trait however, Glimmer of Light, acounts for roughly 7.5% of my total healing in an M+ and is super useful for AoE healing, something which Paladins really struggle with.

Without knowing that, which would you go with? At face value, 225 Intelect is too good to pass up on. Without some way of knowing how well the trait performs you'd just go with it by default. Which is my main complaint with the system - You need external tools to find out how good an item is for you. You can't just eyeball it or make an educated guess anymore or you risk making the "wrong" choice.

I know the whole sim this sim that math this math that gets a lot of say, but I literally ignore it and the results are the same for me.

It does reach a point where the gaps are pretty small. Especially if the item itself is an upgrade in raw stats even without the traits taken into account. There are outliers, but those tend to be more because a trait is either too powerful for the content or one that adds functionality that doesn't otherwise exist - As is the case with Light's Decree, which lets Ret use Avenging Wrath as a burst AoE cooldown, giving them a strong niche that wouldn't exist without the trait.

I'll agree, however, there was something more appealing about the mix and match nature pre ilvl, but I think a large factor is the progression raids design rather than the BC era design where there was a lot of lateral gearing across multiple raids and you'd have raid groups farm the first couple bosses of a new raid to get an edge on the last boss or two from the previous.

There were also other considerations you had to make in that era of the game too. Most notably Hit and Defence Caps. With those gone, you're free to just pile on whatever is the highest iLevel because it will always have most of your primary stat.

As a very brief aside on this - after I did Warfronts a couple times, I thought it would have been kind of fun if they had tooled it just a little more differently and made it like Wintergrasp with a mix of PvE and PvP with a raid boss unlocked for whoever wins for a while. Despite not caring about PvP whatsoever, I did generally enjoy Wintergrasp quite a bit.

I hoped it would be closer to Alterac Valley in it's playstyle, though I can see the comparisons to Wintergrasp too. Honestly, being like either of those would have been fine.I get what they were going for with it, putting the player on the ground in a battle from a Warcraft RTS title, but what we've got out of it is a very shallow, confusing and ultimately easy game mode. I think they may have also been going for some DOTA elements in there too, since both of the maps have a simillar 3 lane layout that converges on central point with 2 layers of defences to break through first.

Were it up to me, I think it would have worked out better as solo content. Where you and your team from your Ship lead your faction into battle. Maybe also tie it in with the mission table too to let you get some of the supplies you'll need for your Warfront, or tie it in with WQ's where you can scout out potential resources and recruit allies for the battle and so on. In the actual Warfront itself you'd assign your NPC followers various tasks, like gathering Wood/Lumber or pushing out one of the lanes to try capture the points there. The whole thing would ultimately come down to you and your followers engaging the other faction leader in a fight.

It might not have worked out better, but I'd have tried to put the player into the Commander role where you get you call the shots and the NPCs carry out your orders, rather than have the players either stuck in the mines or aimlessly wandering around in no-mans-land until it's time for a boss fight.

[Gutler]

Fixed that for ya.

hehe my character is actuallt femroe atm but i juts love viera.

[Zelliaind]

Personally, jumping from FFXIV from WoW was a no brainer for me.

I've played both MMO's with WoW being the one I spent the most time on for a long time. I'd login to FFXIV, do all my roulettes for the day, then go back to WoW and slog through the grind treadmill in Raids or M+ throughout Legion--and that was okay. I had fun, the artifact weapons were interesting and it felt like they were a "love letter" to the talent systems of old. Personally I loved trying to get a Legendary that made certain aspects of my class insane. I didn't mind the grind as much as everyone else either nor the RNG even though most of the time I hate that in MMO's. Maybe all the hours I played D3 prepared me for that. Basically, the amount of interesting systems in Legion held my interest over the systems in FFXIV, even though (from my perspective) there are way things to do except raid Savage or Extreme/Ultimate content.

When BfA came out, it felt like more of the same from Legion except...less. Gone were the interesting artifact weapons and Legendaries. To me, BfA felt like a hollow shell of Legion and didn't grab my attention as much. I said I'd stick around until the raid came out to see if at least that would hold my interest...and it didn't. Uldir was a great looking raid but once we got to Zul, I was completely tuned out of doing the content. I still can't tell if it was boredom from doing all the raids before it or if I felt like I wasn't getting adequate rewards for my effort, but after that I completely tuned out and unsubscribed.

I was still subbed to FFXIV at the time and started playing more. I got to 360 ilevel and started doing Sigmascape normals and did some Sigmascape Savage content but didn't really keep doing it much. What kept (and keeps) me in FFXIV is the side content that you can do. Things like Roulettes, Housing, Professions, Gold Saucer, Hunts, Treasure Maps, PvP (even though the queues are god awful), the in-depth Jobs (classes), Hunt Farming, Relic grinding, even Eureka to a certain extent. All of this content kept me hooked because there are things to do other than run my ass off on that gear treadmill by doing M+, Warfronts, Islands, or Raids. Lets face it, they're all there to get us better gear and/or better traits on our gear by ranking up our necklace.

To me, FFXIV is over all the more well rounded MMO. Maybe my tastes are just changing as I age, but I feel like I can hang out with my guild(FC) mates more in FFXIV without stressing out about getting gear or running on that treadmill. I can't tell you how many times we just chill out front of our FC (or inside) just hanging out and socializing instead of focusing on gearing our Jobs/Classes to the teeth to tackle that next bit of content. To me, that's what makes an MMO; the community aspect--and in WoW that just feels like it's degrading under the constant pressure to get that next piece of gear to perform better than the next guy to get that raid or M+ spot.

I might check out 8.2 and see if anything has changed. I'm skipping 8.1 because it just seems more of the same as 8.0 when I stopped playing.

Don't know why I felt like posting this but I've been reading this thread for what feels like hours and had these thoughts rattling around in my head as I read. Felt the need to put it out there to the world to see despite probably being flamed, told I'm an idiot, or <insert bad thing here>. Take it with what you will.

[Granyala]

I kinda feel the same about BfA.
Story and initial leveling was good, the rest was... well boring actually.
Island expeditions were DOA for me because retarded, Warfronts looked pretty lame as well (was in there only once).

W/o a proper raidguild WoW doesn't have much to offer.

[Celestial476]

Given how it's just WHM getting it, my first assumption would be that it came about as a result of a coding error. If the WHM had higher than intended threat on their spells, then bringing them back into line is the appropriate thing to do.

Guess work on my part of course, but given how threat has never been an issue in FF14 (Not even when all your tank does is spam Shield Lob!), I can't see it being a required change outside of bringing WHM threat into line with that of other healers.

Or I could be completely wrong. Only Squenix know, and I doubt they're going to tell.

I've only been playing for about a month and I am leveling WHM, but I must say my aggro feels insane at times just from casting a single healing spell even after counting to five. Can't tell if it's bad tanks or just what.

[Melsiren]

The enmity raw healing produces should not be underestimated, there's a reason Equilibrium is (Or was) part of the WAR pull.

I'd also guess the difference between SCH/AST and WHM when it comes down to healing enmity boils down to absorbs not generating threat, but I don't really know, my highest level healer is a level 15 conjurer.

[Wrecktangle]

This might be venturing into "hot take" territory, but...I still kinda think that's not a bad thing. I feel like "Item Level" has become this strange object of worship for some people, especially in WoW. It seems to have just led to more and more bland choices because if a 310 item is better than a 320 people lose their minds and act like the developers failed at life or something.

Instead of choices or learning about their stats, people just want gearing to be, "Me Grog, Grog think 2 bigger than 1. Grog like 2."

Personally I miss the days of it being perfectly acceptable to use lower item level gear because of your stat distribution. I kept several items from a tier or more behind - one time even a full expansion behind, although I guess that might be a tad extreme - because of the stat distribution or multiple sockets or what have you. I've never seen that as a bad thing. :/

I'm not a huge fan of the concept of ilvl, but I understand its use and value. I'm trying to think of alternatives, and thinking to other games gearing systems:

Diablo - while I have very fond memories of Diablo gearing (in both 2 and 3), they both suffered from the same "done" syndrome. Once I completed my build I grew bored. Even in MHW I almost suffer from the same issue. Now that I finished Behemoth and got my Dragoon set and played with it a few times, I don't have any immediate goals, which invites boredom.

Blade and Soul - I actually quite liked the soul shield method of gear. Basically you have an 8 piece pie that has stats on it, and accessories to augment your stats and effects. it allowed for a lot of horizontal gearing that I found very enjoyable over the year or so I played the game. There was ALWAYS an upgrade to hunt, which I liked.

FFXIV/WoW - both are pretty binary gearing systems, WoW is decent, but there's a lot less synergy between gearing and talents than I'd like and I don't really feel the upgrades at all. FFXIV is one of the bottom of the barrel gearing systems IMO. It suffers from being insanely binary, nearly completely irrelevant, and also you are "done" far too quickly.

Any other systems from other games that come to your mind? or anyone elses?

It does reach a point where the gaps are pretty small. Especially if the item itself is an upgrade in raw stats even without the traits taken into account. There are outliers, but those tend to be more because a trait is either too powerful for the content or one that adds functionality that doesn't otherwise exist - As is the case with Light's Decree, which lets Ret use Avenging Wrath as a burst AoE cooldown, giving them a strong niche that wouldn't exist without the trait.

To be fair, the reason Light's Decree is so powerful is because of the Wings uptime increase allowing the use of a different talent that is otherwise weak. it doesn't allow Ret to use it as a Burst AOE CD, because it's already your only burst CD. It also can't be stacked (except for the damage component, which is not more valuable than other traits).

What kept (and keeps) me in FFXIV is the side content that you can do. Things like Roulettes, Housing, Professions, Gold Saucer, Hunts, Treasure Maps, PvP (even though the queues are god awful), the in-depth Jobs (classes), Hunt Farming, Relic grinding, even Eureka to a certain extent. All of this content kept me hooked because there are things to do other than run my ass off on that gear treadmill by doing M+, Warfronts, Islands, or Raids. Lets face it, they're all there to get us better gear and/or better traits on our gear by ranking up our necklace.

Mind you I understand and agree with your points I didn't quote, but I wanted to nitpick a few things here:

I don't particularly consider roulette's side content and you listed hunts twice lol. Housing, Professions, Treasure, PVP, & Gold Saucer for sure though.

To me, FFXIV is over all the more well rounded MMO. Maybe my tastes are just changing as I age, but I feel like I can hang out with my guild(FC) mates more in FFXIV without stressing out about getting gear or running on that treadmill. I can't tell you how many times we just chill out front of our FC (or inside) just hanging out and socializing instead of focusing on gearing our Jobs/Classes to the teeth to tackle that next bit of content. To me, that's what makes an MMO; the community aspect--and in WoW that just feels like it's degrading under the constant pressure to get that next piece of gear to perform better than the next guy to get that raid or M+ spot.

I agree it's most certainly more well rounded, but you CAN socialize with your guild/FC mates without worrying about gear. In fact, it's the only thing I do. I don't grind M+. I don't do WQs, my necklace is like 26, and I don't sim gear. I still manage to complete whatever key I'm randomly asked to go to (15+). I still do competitive damage (against other top parsing players) over the course of the dungeon, and I still manage 99% on logs in raids.

That pressure might be self created or a result of your friends in that game, but it doesn't have to be!

I've only been playing for about a month and I am leveling WHM, but I must say my aggro feels insane at times just from casting a single healing spell even after counting to five. Can't tell if it's bad tanks or just what.

Bad tanks at that level for sure. You could also be overhealing a bit too much, which does draw additional aggro. I'd need to play with you to see (<--- not a bad tank)

The enmity raw healing produces should not be underestimated, there's a reason Equilibrium is (Or was) part of the WAR pull.

I'd also guess the difference between SCH/AST and WHM when it comes down to healing enmity boils down to absorbs not generating threat, but I don't really know, my highest level healer is a level 15 conjurer.

That is part of it yes, the other part of it is that the fairy or the star do not generate threat as they're from sources other than the player.

[StrawberryZebra]

Any other systems from other games that come to your mind? or anyone elses?

I quite liked the gearing in Divinity 2 if I'm honest. Where gear gave you a bonus to specific skill lines, eg +2 Pyromancy would give you extra Fire damage regardless of the source. Intelect would increase all your magical damage and so on. Probably the most interesting aspect was finding gear that had bonus skills on it. They were always skills you could learn for yourself outside of Plot specific items, but it gave you access to an extra skill to play with. At the very least it let you use the Memory slot on something else, so you always came out ahead by equipping them.

It wasn't a perfect system, the armour values got in the way of what could have been an interesting system due to how important they were, but it offered you the flexability to allow your build to excel in a few specific areas or be a more general jack of all trades. Particularly when playing online, you'd have to consider who would be the best recipient of whatever loot you came across, considering both survivability and who was taking on which role.

To it's detrement, finding gear to make the exact build you wanted was also extremely difficult. Almost all of the loot was randomised, so you'd aim to make a specific build with a characters base stats and consider finding gear to match as a bonus rather than a core part of the characters growth. Less of an issue with a game like FF14, where boss drops are from a pool of options, but it would open up the possiability to gear yourself badly for your role.

To be fair, the reason Light's Decree is so powerful is because of the Wings uptime increase allowing the use of a different talent that is otherwise weak. it doesn't allow Ret to use it as a Burst AOE CD, because it's already your only burst CD. It also can't be stacked (except for the damage component, which is not more valuable than other traits).

The best use case with Light's Decree is when you can use it along with Wake of Ashes on lots of targets. It's why I think it's one of the better traits in the game. It changes how you think about your cooldown and has you reconsider when would be the best time to use it.

For short periods of bursty adds, like Fetid for example, it really does shake up AW usage. I've also been using it more on large trash packs in M+ too rather than saving it to use straight off the bat in a boss fight. Particularly with the Teeming Affix, it's a huge boost to clearing speeds.

[Katchii]

Anyone have any experience with Blue Mage in the new patch yet?

I've been trying to keep up with the reddit since I can't play it yet and I really don't have the desire to go on a scavenger hunt to find the right monster I just want to go around hunting the right target and farming the abilties. According to some folks there, SE went and renamed a shitload of enemy abilities to coincide with the release of BLU to funnel players to specific mobs to learn the specific spell.

ie many lower level monsters that used self-destruct have now had their ability changed to self-detonate, or Flamethrower changed to Thrown Flames, 1000-Needles changed to 1000-Barbs, etc... so you HAVE to find the specific monster that uses the actual ability. Many of them also seem to be specific to max level dungeons and trials which seem impossible to solo as a level 50 BLU.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

[threads]

Anyone have any experience with Blue Mage in the new patch yet?

I've been trying to keep up with the reddit since I can't play it yet and I really don't have the desire to go on a scavenger hunt to find the right monster I just want to go around hunting the right target and farming the abilties. According to some folks there, SE went and renamed a shitload of enemy abilities to coincide with the release of BLU to funnel players to specific mobs to learn the specific spell.

ie many lower level monsters that used self-destruct have now had their ability changed to self-detonate, or Flamethrower changed to Thrown Flames, 1000-Needles changed to 1000-Barbs, etc... so you HAVE to find the specific monster that uses the actual ability. Many of them also seem to be specific to max level dungeons and trials which seem impossible to solo as a level 50 BLU.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

blue mage won't be playable until next week

[Katchii]

blue mage won't be playable until next week

Awww poop.

I was super excited about it too.

I saw the "Blue mage job quests are scheduled for implementation one week after the release of patch 4.5" message in the patch notes and interpreted that as the ones you get as you level up, not the one you could use to unlock it. =(

Oh well. Guess I can focus on the patch quests for now.

[Melsiren]

That is part of it yes, the other part of it is that the fairy or the star do not generate threat as they're from sources other than the player.

So unlike Salted Earth from a DRK, Star is considered summon that is the real source of the healing?

[Kazgrel]

So unlike Salted Earth from a DRK, Star is considered summon that is the real source of the healing?

Yup, it's considered a "pet".

[Usagi Senshi]

I can see June already....

[dope_danny]

[HEAVY BREATHING]

https://imgur.com/a/ReeUM7y

[Gutler]

Log into account management and you'll be able to find the option to remove the token.
Then download the smart phone authenticator and follow instructions for getting it linked to your account.

Absolutely make sure you save your code for removing this software token from your account. I've had the token reset itself, making it impossible to access account management (when it resets, you need to access account management to re-register it but you need your token code to access account management). Write it down and put it somewhere safe, save it in a spreadsheet somewhere on the computer (do both!) or whatever you need to do, but be sure you keep a copy of that removal password!

Hmmm after reading reviews on the app store the smart phone app looks like more of a hassle i'll just order another physical token and save myself the headache.

[Usagi Senshi]

Hopped into the character select screen, hit the button at the top to upload my data.

Did a clean install of Win10 on my SSD.
New 500GB SSD installed to be dedicated to FFXIV and WoW (the 250 was getting tight sharing with Windows as the two games get larger)

Everything installed and working, re-install FFXIV, login..... realize I didn't use the launcher backup and didn't backup characters individually. Have to redo my UI and hotkey set up across all jobs and alts.

Good job, me. T-T

I did this twice in the past three years with building three new systems. It's such a downer and makes you wanna cry.

[Katchii]

Hmmm after reading reviews on the app store the smart phone app looks like more of a hassle i'll just order another physical token and save myself the headache.

How so? It's got the same hassles as the physical token from an account management standpoint. At least with the phone app you get an emergency removal code just in case you break, lose, replace, etc... your phone. Physical token doesn't have that option IIRC.

Either way, if the token gets borked, it's going to be a pain getting back into your account.

I've had both, and prefer the phone app/ digital token FAR more than the physical one.

- - - Updated - - -

[HEAVY BREATHING]

https://imgur.com/a/ReeUM7y

Is there an actual in game shot of a Viera yet? I'm no expert at this, but that image looks photo shopped (Fran's model,skin, shadowing, etc... doesn't look anything like any other in game character) and I can't find anything else online..yet, but I also haven't looked that hard.

Edit: NVM, found several others on the reddit. She looks amazing. Hopefully the playable Viera look just as good. If their animations are nice, I may have to switch from cat girl to bunny girl.

- - - Updated - - -

In my fervor for finding info out about BLU and learning magic I went to the FFXIV reddit and found this post. Obviously pretty spoilery for BLU spell locations and whatnot so click at your own risk if you don't want anything spoiled.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...earning_guide/

[dope_danny]

Well part 1 of the story ends real abruptley but boy that was a fun dungeon. Middle boss could do with something else as we burned him down too fast and he did like two phases and felt like a pushover compared to the first. Final one felt like Griffon 2.0 which i guess is the thing they were going for but lets be real under those masks its some alchemical monster shit thats going to fuse into meltigemini isn't it?

[Granyala]

[HEAVY BREATHING]
https://imgur.com/a/ReeUM7y

Damn, she's tall. Oo