[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Faroth]

The whole Matoya thing is apparently fairly simply logical. With Y'shtola not currently inhabiting her body, Matoya is able to take it over. My friend recently played the BLM questline in SB and said that's already established to be possible.

Minfillia will be the curious question to see answered, but a reincarnation makes sense either way it works out.

Regardless of what's coming, I get the feeling our next few MSQ patches are going to have a LOT of story with some surprises in store.

[Archmage Khadgar]

I'm iffy on the Nier crossover and really iffy on that car mount for the FF15 promotion. The first thing that came to mind was Tera and its car mounts that did not at all fit the games setting. Sure we have Garlemald and Allagans but we've never seen anything remotely like cars.

I'm not a fan of it, personally. I'm really just not a fan of any "modern" things in fantasy games. The motorcycle already sticks out like a sore thumb, a car will just look stupid. At least make it look allagan themed or something.

[dope_danny]

The whole Matoya thing is apparently fairly simply logical. With Y'shtola not currently inhabiting her body, Matoya is able to take it over. My friend recently played the BLM questline in SB and said that's already established to be possible.

Minfillia will be the curious question to see answered, but a reincarnation makes sense either way it works out.

Regardless of what's coming, I get the feeling our next few MSQ patches are going to have a LOT of story with some surprises in store.

I think its more Ysh'tola taking up the name when the current Matoya dies as she job switches to Sage. Yoshi made quite a point of "she looks like a black mage" and don't forget Urianger was also KO'ed by this dark echo thing as well right? so why would he be up and around if the others weren't? and he's been set up for something with him dropping the line to Allisae in 4.4 "Look ye where the sun doth rise, see crimson embers dark'ning skies. Look ye where the sun doth fall, see azure lost amidst the squall" which first showed up on the lodestone at the end of heavensward and people assumed it was a teaser that Estinien was going to die that clearly never happened.
Now it could mean the resurgence of doma and the start of the war in 4.5 but the "azure lost amid the squall" bit might be a reference to minfilia with her connection to a certain giant blu crystal and he already knows whats going on. Wouldn't be the first time the writers have him be a jojo style "but i was working on this the whole time and the writer never told you!" exposition dump. His whole 'what say you, master montoya?' thing seems like a challenge or questioning if it is montoya while holding up a three card spread of AST cards which in the lore is used to divinate the identity/future of a single person. So he looks like he wasn't there with Ysh'tola all along and is up to something that lead him there.

[Katchii]

Super excited about the whole expansion. I really just enjoy new content and story to consume, and FFXIV has delivered on that many times over with the past 2 expansions. Very intrigued by how the expansion will play out with the Scions being KO'd right now. When/Where does the expansion take place? How do the Scions wake up? Why do they all job change? My theory is much like someone else said, where we'll be in a "future" and then go back in time to fix the issues being caused right now. At the end of the Stormblood MSQ, the WoL will also get taken by the voice and then Shadowbringers MSQ will start with us "awakening" alongside our previously knocked out Scions who were taken to first and we have to fumble through the story finding out what caused the issue, learn how to fix it, find a way "back" and then implement the fixes or at least a plan on how to prevent the catastrophe.

Very much looking forward to the new tanking job, Gunbreaker as I just like new jobs and this one looks interesting based on the dialogue so far with Yoshida and his vision for the game play. I'm hoping the other new job is Dancer, as I think that would be a very interesting class regardless of which role it's chosen to fill, but can guess it's a healer. I'd guess that it will have dances that act as an aura, similar AST sects, that augment all of their moves. I hope that it's a more offensive based healer, with the dances augmenting their moves where they attack enemies and heal allies like Disc priest currently or Fistweaver used to be in WoW. Doubt that would be THAT hard to balance, but we'll have to wait and see. I doubt they'll introduce more than what they have so far in BLU, GUN and possibly DNC but have they made any allusions to other jobs? I hope BLU gets a level cap raise soon and it becomes more than a side show job. It's really fun to play IMO, but pointless since you can't do anything above level 50 now and IMO once you clear the 25 Masked Carnival things and have all the spells, there's really not much point in playing it anymore.

As far as having technology/ "modern" things in a fantasy game, I don't mind as long as it makes sense within the theme and lore of the game itself. It's a common trope to have a long lost empire with advanced technology fill this role, just like the Allagans do now, with Garlemald being the most prominent user/ dabbler in waking it up and using it, but it becoming more commonplace now that it's getting out in the world. I don't mind the trope, it makes for some interesting dialogue and lore progression sometimes, and I think FFXIV has made good usage of it without ignoring the other fantasy elements even having a pretty solid lore reason WHY Garlemald relies on it so much.

Definitely going to be getting the Collectors Edition for Shadowbringers =)

[Faroth]

Also of note, I did a final push and got WHM level capped. Really enjoyed the lore of the job quests giving some more fleshing out to the padjal and makes a lot more sense why Kan-E-Senna is the way she is in cut scenes.

This is the first time I've gotten a healer leveled up and the first time I have mentor status.

Just need to get DRK up before expansion (should be easy) and culinarian (should be even easier).

Tonight, however..... I'm going to clean up inventory.

The Shadowbringers Collector's Edition makes me wish we had gotten a Dragoon and Samurai statue in the last two. I'd love to have a statue of each job, ideally in their main artifact set, though I'd also be cool with them having some represented by NPC statues. I could definitely see them offering those similar to the Odin, Ultima, Shiva statues down the road.

Though I'd hope they'd be a bit cheaper. That Ultima statue is priceeeyyyyyy (coming from the guy who has the 4 Sideshow Collectibles TMNT and all of the Fellowship of the Ring *damn them for AGAIN not doing Merry & Pippin*).

[StrawberryZebra]

Hmm melee support would definitely be different.

It would be a niche that isn't, currently, represented in game. A more elegent sort of move set, possiably with something like a fan as a weapon could work. Having spinning motions, acrobatic leaps and graceful combos would really capture the kind of moveset I'd expect from a Dancer. Perhaps with placing short term debuffs on the finishing move of your combo, giving you a choice of routes depending on which effect you wanted at the time.

As for how they could provide support, I'd like to see them get really creative with it, something like Warframe's Octavia where your Squad has to move with the beat in order to get buffed. It's much more involved than simple on/off buffs, but does ask a lot of your group too. Allowing the player to compose their own tune for Octavia's beat is a fun little extra customisation option, and we've already got something similar already for the Bard in FF14. Making other players dance for buffs is much more interesting than simply having one player be a dancing buff-bot.

The problem is none of the fun or interesting ideas really work out for a healer imo. You'd be hanging back and dancing away in the middle of a fight - That would look very out of place. That kind of excessive movement for a spellcaster would also seem rather strange too, and if you're casting regular spells then you lose a lot of the fantasy of the job. Having to stop casting and dance would break up the flow of play, and if the buffs are simply applied to everyone in range all you're really left with is a less RNG, but equally as annoying, version of the Astrologian.

It would be a jarring transition going from dancing to healing and back again. It would be a very stop/start playstyle. Healing through dancing leads to all kinds of weird situations where you'd be doing short 1-2 second dances in rapid succession without ever really putting a full dance together. It would get extremely messy when you factor in casting speed and have to speed up and slow down the animation to match.

I'm not saying that it couldn't work as a healer, only that the role would diminish a lot of what could potentially be fun and interesting characteristics of the Job. Thats why it doesn't appeal to me as a healer.

[leviathonlx]

They've been hinting at Dancer certainly. That doesn't, necessarily, mean it'll be a healer though, my first thought would have been a DPS with a more supportive role, similar role to the Bard. It could even be it's own separate thing like the BLU, where the core gameplay revolves around learning dances from various cultural groups and beast tribes.

The Garleans, being distinctly none-magical, would almost certainly have come up with some way of looking after their sick and injured that involves more scientific methods. For an expansion with Garlean themed jobs Chemist would be an ideal choice as a healer based more on medical remedies, bandages, potions and so on. A skill like Mix though could present some problems, combining two spells together means they've got to be weaker individually to account for Mix or else Mix would end up being too powerful. Perhaps have it be a semi-randomised buff dispensor the same way Astrologain cards are? I don't know, just throwing ideas out.

The Garleans also have Allagan technologies too, so the idea of a more futuristic healer isn't entirely out of the question - even if it is an unlikely choice. I don't want them to go full Sci-fi with it, but it's an option that's on the table. I'd still prefer it to Dancer though.

This interview basically confirms DNC will be a healer as expected as they think we have too many DPS.

[dope_danny]

We do. Don't get me wrong i like to dps and hope we see more jobs from the series as dps. But we have 3 tanks and 3 healers to 10 dps if you include BLU. That needs some balancing out, if you get adding just dps the gear tables would be ridiculous. we could do with at least two more tank and heals with a second gear grouping for them.

[Katchii]

I'm not saying that it couldn't work as a healer, only that the role would diminish a lot of what could potentially be fun and interesting characteristics of the Job. Thats why it doesn't appeal to me as a healer.

What if Dancer was a melee fighter that healed through combos and "dances?" Obviously the damage would have to be balanced around, but the damage could be really low on enemies...or they could do DPS style rotations except target party members rather than enemies to heal them with individual moves providing different benefits/ effects.

Like a 3 part combo would be:
1) One of two moves move that applies either HoT or Shield and is instant to allow time to do the next moves 2) flourish that extends/ enhances the shield or HoT and is a relatively short "cast" and 3) a finishing move that does a direct heal. Each of these moves could, just like melee combos, be used on different targets. Perhaps you could string these together in a different order to provide differing effects/ enhancements. Like having a dance move that does a very minor amount of damage/ healing but enhances the effect of the next move performed so you could strengthen a direct heal, strengthen/ extend a HoT, makes the "esuna" an AoE spell or something like that.

Different "stances" could make moves be direct heals vs AoE to make it a little different than AST with (HoT vs Shield), or have the stances be what decides if you're "attacking" your allies and doing combos on them or if you're actually attacking enemies and healing through damage similar to WoW Mistweaver (Fistweaving) or current Discipline Priest is, or Rift Choloromancer.

Just postulating that there are options that would make Dancer unique in it's execution and have it retain some of it's iconic dance style flow of moves. Obviously for this melee style healing to work, they'd need move sets that allowed them to move around the arena easily or just have their move set have the same range as regular heals, but just have melee style combos attached to them.

Regardless, I'm excited to see what they come up with.

And as @Leviathonix stated, Yoshida practically confirmed there won't be a DPS job added this expansion due to just how many they already have, but specifically mentions melee DPS not being added, which is what Dancer would likely be if it was DPS.

[RohanV]

What if Dancer was a melee fighter that healed through combos and "dances?" Obviously the damage would have to be balanced around, but the damage could be really low on enemies...or they could do DPS style rotations except target party members rather than enemies to heal them with individual moves providing different benefits/ effects.

The real problem with melee healers is that it changes the ratio of melee:ranged. Like right now, a raid designer can expect 3-5 ranged players. And guarantees one ranged in 4-man groups. A melee healer immediately makes there be as few as 2 ranged. This messes with a lot of raid mechanics.

I play Holy Paladin in WoW. Blizzard has done a really good job pushing us towards melee. But if your raid composition is at all melee-heavy, it feels like you have to move back to ranged to balance things.

Edit: I should say that in theory I like the idea of being a melee-healer. In practice, though, it's a bit annoying to try to determine if it's safe to melee-heal every fight. I sometimes wish they had just left us as ranged healers.

[Karamaru]

We do. Don't get me wrong i like to dps and hope we see more jobs from the series as dps. But we have 3 tanks and 3 healers to 10 dps if you include BLU. That needs some balancing out, if you get adding just dps the gear tables would be ridiculous. we could do with at least two more tank and heals with a second gear grouping for them.

I really would have though that the Gunbreaker would have been the perfect job to share the maiming gear since the DRG and the NIN have unique amor classes that they dont share with anyone regardless I am happy with the a gunblade class tank or DPS.

[Usagi Senshi]

I'm not a fan of it, personally. I'm really just not a fan of any "modern" things in fantasy games. The motorcycle already sticks out like a sore thumb, a car will just look stupid. At least make it look allagan themed or something.

Its a high fantasy game just like WoW (which has steampunk added in), anything like cars and motorcycles are fair game. If it was something like DAoC or LotRO, I would highly agree with you.

The interconnected realities/worlds also allow these sorts of things to easily exist.

Its best to just go with the flow IMO; you'll enjoy the games more when you nitpick less about them.

[leviathonlx]

Its a high fantasy game just like WoW (which has steampunk added in), anything like cars and motorcycles are fair game. If it was something like DAoC or LotRO, I would highly agree with you.

The interconnected realities/worlds also allow these sorts of things to easily exist.

Its best to just go with the flow IMO; you'll enjoy the games more when you nitpick less about them.

I think mine and his main problems is just they feel out of place with the games current looks. Like WoW has cars and bikes as well but they are clearly goblin/gnomish inventions. The car and bike in FF14 could have just been designed in a way to fit FF14's lore with it being Allagan/Garlean themed rather than just ripping an object from yet another game. Which leads into my main problem with Nier being that I'd rather us get raids that develop on the lore we already have rather than another nostalgia fest that is in the end irrelevant like so much of SB has been with Omega and Ivalice.

[StrawberryZebra]

What if Dancer was a melee fighter that healed through combos and "dances?" Obviously the damage would have to be balanced around, but the damage could be really low on enemies...or they could do DPS style rotations except target party members rather than enemies to heal them with individual moves providing different benefits/ effects.

Which definately sounds, to me, far more interesting as a concept. When I think of Dancers, I think of delibarate movements and constant motion. When I think of Healers I think more of the "standing still and casting" type of healer. I'd have a hard time reconciling the two if I'm honest, they're diametrically opposed. Melee range healing, particularly one that would involve getting different effects from combo moves depending on which angle you executed them from, would be a cool idea. It makes dancing around in combat a core part of the experience.

When it comes to dancers in video games I tend to think more of characters like Tekken's Eddy Gordo, who fights using Capoeira, or Lili who uses a mixture of Ballet and Gymnastics. Capoeira fighters especially are common enough in gaming.

The real problem with melee healers is that it changes the ratio of melee:ranged. Like right now, a raid designer can expect 3-5 ranged players. And guarantees one ranged in 4-man groups. A melee healer immediately makes there be as few as 2 ranged. This messes with a lot of raid mechanics.

I don't think it's an insurmountable obstacle for raiding. It would shake up what the current raid comp looks like of course, but given that we're getting new Jobs and new skills as we level up, that was expected to happen anyway. For a group that's intentionally set up to accomodate a melee healer it should be more than fine.

It can be an issue for 4 man content however. Then again, most 4 man content is tuned very lax to begin with. That is subject to change with Shadowbringers of course, but I don't see it being a huge obsticle, barring mechanics that require having >X Melee or bad stuff happens, or else having a mechanic that targets the person standing furthest away.

[GreenJesus]

Speaking of macros...
Having to manually target another melee to utilize Dragon Sight was terrible. When I have to consistently forgo using a dps cool down because of a cumbersome UI and ability design, they have done something wrong.

omg.. a thousand times this.. not to mention it only works on people in your party so if you misclick on a green name in a raid its a waste of time.

[Granyala]

Which leads into my main problem with Nier being that I'd rather us get raids that develop on the lore we already have rather than another nostalgia fest that is in the end irrelevant like so much of SB has been with Omega and Ivalice.

If the gear looks good, then the Nier nostalgia fest was worth it.

[leviathonlx]

If the gear looks good, then the Nier nostalgia fest was worth it.

Well it can't get worse than most of SB's gear....right?

[Dugna]

you can use the f keys to target people in your group if you want least on pc makes stuff like dragon sight easier, just hit the f key associated with the party member and then use the buff.

[dope_danny]

If the gear looks good, then the Nier nostalgia fest was worth it.

Viera in a 2b dress is going to recoup that 133 million purely by itself!

[TriHard]

I wonder if people will actually sub to ffxiv and play through it just to get to the Nier content, seeing as they stated this will build on the current Nier's story.

I'm guessing some diehard fans probably will