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Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker |OT|

JORMBO

Darkness no more
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Developer: Square Enix
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5
Genre: MMORPG
Official Website


Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker[a] is the fourth expansion pack to Final Fantasy XIV, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Square Enix for Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. It was released on December 7, 2021, over two years after Shadowbringers, the previous expansion, with its production delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Like its predecessors, Naoki Yoshida served as director and producer and Masayoshi Soken composed the soundtrack. The expansion pack was released as a standalone product for current players; for new players, the "Complete Edition" that originally launched with Heavensward was updated to include all expansions including Endwalker.

In Endwalker, players directly confront the Garlean Empire, an expansionist power that threatens the players' homeland and allies. Zenos, the mad son of the former emperor, has murdered his father and now seeks a confrontation with the player's Warrior of Light. He is aided by Fandaniel, an Ascian who aims to destroy the world and thereby end his immortal existence. The story has been marketed as the "finale" of the Hydaelyn–Zodiark arc, drawing the current ongoing story to a close, with an entirely new story beginning in the major patches following release. In addition to adding new areas, the expansion pack increases the level cap to 90 and debuts two new character classes, Sage and Reaper.

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Resources:

Eorzea Collection (Glamour)
FF Logs
FF14 Housing
Gamer Escape Wiki
Garland Tools Database
Official Forums
Patch Breakdown - Google Doc
Reddit FFXIV
 
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Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Not rejoining until 5.3, methinks. Want for there to be a few patches of content before I buy a month. But I thoroughly enjoyed my journey from 2.0 to 5.0.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I recently just started playing FFXIV. I played it once years ago and got to Lv. 30 as a Gladiator, but stopped for one reason or another. I think I wanted it to be something it wasn't. This time around, I'm embracing it's solo-friendly and story-focused structure and having a great time working my way through the content. Currently a Lv. 42 Summoner.
 
I noticed we don't have a thread for XIV so I tossed together a quick one! I'll add more to it when I have time.
Huh, I was wondering what happened to the XIV thread. Guess it got purged in the Community merge. Thanks for making a new one. :)

Edit: New PvP mount looks amazing. Between this and the Blue Mage morbol, 5.15 is going to be the best mount drop ever.
 
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Thabass

Member
Haven't played in a few months since my surgery. Need to get back in and play some of the newer stuff. I did do the new dungeon in patch 5.1. But that's about it.
 

Kenpachii

Member
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Played it for a month or two.

The game had too many problems sadly to the point i just quitted it. They need to overhaul the game completely if they want to get my attention and my friends back ( this is based on 3 people that started to play the game ).

Website and account:

1) Incredible garbage website and registry process i had to make 2 times new e-mail accounts because the game just didn't wanted to work with you.

They are also super anal about your birthday, if you just ram something random in ( because it's none of their business), u better of rebuying the entire game because u will never be able to get access to your account if you lose the pass or want to buy anything. Dumbest shit ever.

By far the worst i ever saw in any game really.

Also if you register your account with a key u bought, and download the game ( friend has really bad internet so took him 2-3 days to download ) it already drains your subscription for 2-3 days even while u never logged in even once.

The best way to do things is, free account to level 35, then buy the base game game with 30 play days, then buy the expansions one by one to get lots of gametime for free. Or if u can get the complete edition for super cheap get it. Sadly i bought the complete edition and just went with it which removed a ton of play days.

2) Lack of information and just calling stuff different to be edgy what has universal names in the MMO department. Stuff like servers / linkshells etc. It's incredible confusing and makes it just hard for new players to understand what goes on and what they even should buy when they want to upgrade. I had to reroll a complete different char and buy another copy when i realized i could play with a EU account on NA servers which would save me a good amount of cash. Terrible.

Game itself:

3) Overwhelmed with information and yet barely get anything explained because u steamroll so fast through the content at the start that honestly u hit level 50 with nothing unlocked and all content locked away from u its a endless stream of information that keeps popping up. I didn't even know there where raids at level 50, because its all gated in useless quests that give you no rewards and which u will never do unless u specifically know about it. As u rush so fast through main quest early levels u will not do any other quest as u outlevel most likely already the content anyway. Feels very much like boosted wow content. Yet 3/4 content is locked away behind those normal blue quests.

4) Leveling is the fastest through MSQ which u need to do ( main story quest ). However if you don't like your class after 60 levels and u reroll those are no longer available unless u reroll your entire character. ( your character is basically a full blown account in wow terms so u won't be doing that ). This means dungeon grinds are the only options and frankly wait times are brutal to the point u just don't bother.

If you are a DPS u are basically screwed or have to nail yourself towards these boring as hell endless tower runs. Because dungeon queu's are 30-50 minutes for a 15 minute run that at 60+ gives you barely 1/5th of a level. The grind to max level is incredible bad. Monsters don't give experience, guests are stupidly low experience wise that u won't even bother with. U basically have to play support which i couldn't care about to get any content going. It's bad game design.

5) Play with more people, that are different levels?. don't worry u can all join each other and levels scale down + play with your friends is easy now. Uhhhh but what they forget to tell you.

If you are 10 levels higher, u probably get 5x more experience out of a dungeon of your own level. That u friends can't join because to high level, that your skills get downgraded to the point u can't even cast your skills anymore because u replaced them for your higher level skills on your bar. Which results in u having to push different bars forwards just for lower level content and make rotations obnoxious to play with. It's a wonky system.

6) No dps meters, when u sit in a dungeon there is no DPS meter or any meter at all. U can just stand there AFK auto hitting and nobody would know. The amount of times i would just press 2 buttons and follow the group because i had no idea if my dmg was anything worthwhile even remotely or if i did a rotation right because i can't see dmg numbers.

Now people have illegal 3rd party programs that act like dmg meters which i also got installed ( wonky as hell programs with a lot of work ). And then u realize how utterly shit dmg u actually do, because people that are 70 and downgraded towards your level will always have max damage output through gear cap while u stand there with your leveling gear do not even a 5th of there dmg. It makes u feel even more useless and makes dungeon play extremely dull as u won't even try anymore as DPS ( i only play dps i couldn't care about support classes ).

People can't complain even if they know your dmg is low, because that would result in them having dps meters which is illegal. So yea gg with that logic.

7) Dungeons system needs a overhaul entirely. The game lacks support massively. most people play dps that has always been the case in any mmo. Yet when wow has 3 dps and 1 tank and 1 healer and always struggled hard to get the support positions filled.

These guys went even further with that shit concept making 2 dps 1 tank 1 support groups to do dungeons with. So basically 50% support needed to get a dungeon to go. Which means with 95% being DPS that queue times are insanely obnoxious long for DPS. ( who would have thought that. ) stupid as hell. They need to make dungeons more flexible where more DPS join, like 8 dps with 1 healer and 1 tank or whatever ratio queued up. And no endless tower (its stolen from ro anyway ) isn't a solution as it barely is any fun at all. U get skills so fast and roll through it so fast u are just walking from room to room to room until u fall asleep from boredom. Horrible leveling way also queue times are obnoxious at times even in that.

Basically fix your dungeon system.

8) Nobody ever talks with each other. The game feels extremely dead because of it. Nobody ever ever talks. Because they have linkshells ( chat group, yea the name thingy again ) or something (took me a day to figure that out, if only they called it chat groups oh boy) which got replaced by discord community's which is just endless random discord channels u can google and hope u find something interesting.

When i started to play the game i didn't found any help in the game whatsoever through the lack of chats. If u sit on a free account for first 35 levels, u are even more limited. U really feel like u are playing a single player game instead of a mmo.

Terrible experience, they need to introduce chat channels in this game or some half decent functioning chat system.

9) Names in the game are borderline bad and not memorable easily. Incredible difficult to remember ( city names or area's ) unless u are a massive ff nerd. U will struggle to recognise names of area's or remember them even remotely when u plow through them quick.

Sorry but Ala Mhigo, Limsa Lominsa. Ul'dah. I can't even pronounce that even if i tried lamo. Translation team should have used some honestly different names that are easy to remember and actually speakable for western society's. It's just gibberish most of the time.

Then we didn't even address the god awful npc names, most of the npc names etc are all borderline impossible to pronounce which basically makes it, oh its the red haired lady at that village left from main city. It's terrible.

10) Map, never saw such a clusterfuck of a confusing map in my life. Incredible hard to work with. I still don't know where most of my area's are located i just click stuff and see if it pops up. Wow has a so much more better system on this front. All of us had this issue.

11) High ping kills the game for you. Some chars are even unplayable entirely because u will never be able to do the rotations to play higher level with it. It's so bad some people basically advice u to skip classes entirely because of it. I play oversea's because of friends so yea 160 ms was terrible to play with.

The game focuses on position ridiculous hard. It's basically half the game. U gotta move out of aoe etc, and it doesn't work well with high ping. Which results in me having to reroll to another class that was more mobile.

I basically have to walk instantly out of aoe or else u get hit. as the game has 2 seconds delay to recognize my position. So i walk out of there and 1 sec later the aoe hits i still hits. I died endlessly because of that.

They need to address this.

12) Something completely different now: pre order bonuses.

I hate content being locked away from you that u cant get anymore if you are coming in late. And ofcourse FF14 has lots of it. And not even minor cosmetic stuff nope. It's full blown 30% 1-70 exp increase ring which is MASSIVE. Feels like a spit in the face for new players and frankly doesn't encourage u to continue playing much when other people that have it out level u massively because of it.

Never ever lock stuff which such drastically effect away to never be gained again. It's dumb as hell. And it was a constant conversation we had with eachother as one of our friends that already played the game was outleveling us massively because of it.

Main story quests and content unlocking:

Some information what main story quest is:

FF14 works this way, u have normal quests, blue quests, purple quests and main story quests. Normal quests are totally useless, the blue quests have mostly features locked behind them. There are so many of those that u honestly will be skipping them all until u get to expansions where u gotta do them in order to fly basically, then u got purple quests which are events, trash experience but the only thing that gives u some experience if u wait on queue's i guess ( good at the start to get to dungeon levels range ~15 ).

The main story quest is basically the entire story of the game, and u cannot skip this. Everything is locked behind it. U will always have to do this to advance so nothing else matters then this quest. U are level 50 and your story quest is level 30? have fun doing 30 quest content and get no experience. It's utterly pointless to do anything but main story quest u need to go through all of it.

13) Main story quest system is AWFUL. by far the worst shit i ever had to deal with in any game. Let's make a list about it as this is by far the main complain.

- At the start of the game the story quest is fine, it feels like your typical mmo questing until u hit probably 35+ Which is fast as its pretty much heirloom leveling in wow kinda of deal hitting level 60 in comparison u blast through the content.
- soon after u hit 35+ the story quest starts to become a drag, Its basically walk here walk there walk here teleport there for the next 100's of hours. And that is if you skip the cutscenes which are obnoxious long, bad and not voiced mostly with just characters standing still with a text dialogue.
- It becomes worse that constantly those video's have to load in which takes a ton of time and the main NPC's are all locked behind loading screens on loading screens. specially first expansion they put there main npc behind 2 loading screens for whatever reason.

Now i got a 9900k with a 3500/3300 nvme drive with 100/100 up down connection, so yea loading isn't a issue for my hardware yet the game loads a long as time 2-5 seconds which multiple loads behind each other. It's extremely obnoxious to push those quests out fast, I tried it and the fastest i got my char to level 80 with msq out of the way, was probably about ~120 hours. And that's with skipping cutscenes as fast as possible. It's horrible.

- Now to level efficient with a dps u sign up for a dungeon while doing the main quest, this isn't workable most of the time because main quest actually needs the dungeon queue's at times which slows u down with experience gain considerable and the moment u hit a msq dungeon u will be waiting for a long time doing absolutely nothing 30-50 minutes to get a invite for that dungeon. If there is another dungeon straight behind it, yea gg with that.

U basically have to beg people for a healer or a tank to help with queue times endlessly or else u won't do much in a day worth of gaming.

- Once u hit level 50, u will be unlocked main story quest dungeons which roulettes for it. These roulettes give u a full blown level, they are needed, the average wait time is 40 minutes to get into one sometimes even a hour, and if you are unlocky even two hours. These are the worst of the worst dungeons i ever experienced in my life and u gotta do them every day to get experience going.

It's basically 2 dungeons, with a long as hell cutscene story in it that is unskippable and always the same. They can take up to 30 minutes of pure cutscenes with in between small bit sized game play of people rushing to the next cutscene. If you did those dungoens 10 times, its still the same story. It's OBNOXIOUS long and tedious and evolves no gameplay ( i guess console people like this type of stuff ) but it's the worst shit ever to deal with. No clue which donkey created these dungeons and thought it was a good idea.

Here's a dungeon u have to sit through EVERY SINGLE DAY, there is a chance u get the litle bit shorter dungeon tho. But doing the same shit over and over again is extremely obnoxious specially with the story in it that's unskippable.

Here u got the run, its 1 hour and 22 minutes long. yea it's LONG.



For your main story quest, u will also have to do both of those anyway even if u didn't care for the story u now will have to sit through next 2-4 hours with wait times to get further.. and really drags your progress down by a lot.

- After u passed level 50 and u did your main quests u are happy to think u could move on towards the next expansion. u are dead wrong. The next expansion is level 50>60 basically level wise to give you a idea, but u probably will be level 58 before u even enter the first area of new content. Because the series of qeusts that they call after patch main quests is going to kill any enjoyment u still had left in the game.

In short these are main quests that got added in patches after the original game released they do as free updates. Which is fine if you play the game on day one and just have to sit through 10-20 quests and be done again. But once u have 3 expansions and the main game to go through it becomes ridiculous

To give you a idea how ridiculous it really is.

Every single quest has on average 5 sub quests u gotta do to complete it. Some are 2 steps ( rare ) some are 10+ steps most are ~5-6 steps.With some steps having dungeon requirements which will drag u down considerable on pushing yourself through it.

A single patch has about 10-20 quests, and there are like 5-6 patches. So that means u gotta do ~450 quests, with cutscenes dungeons, endless laod times to get to NPC's just to get to the next expansion.

It's ridiculous. I slammed my head against a wall after days of mowing through that garbage and once u do, congrats u can start all over again with the next expansion to do exactly the same again and then again for the next expansion and again for the next expansion.

Luckily they are a bit shorter, but now blue quests are super important to unlock dungeon content and flying skill which also is something to laugh about.

In other words, main quest is killing new players interest in the game its the absolute worst system i ever saw in my life terrible, specially for people that just want to play together and play end game content.

- The game cannot be played because of MSQ's with friends, because u all have to basically do it in a different pace. Its endlessly walking around and teleporting. To the point if u need to wait on somebody else on your step ( not like in those 1000's of quests u will align up anyway at any point ) u will slow yourself down even far more. Also u don't need help because its mostly just running around. It's kinda anti mmo style and more single player style.

14) I far rather had them release a short movie for 30 minutes that explains what goes on grossly for each expansion that u can watch outside of the game instead of having to deal with all of those god awful cutscenes that is just a skip galore. Even if there is good content in between u will not be interested in it anymore after u skipped number 1000th cutscene. So the good content is getting skipped because i don't know what is good and what is not.

15) longer fight instance based main quests are to hard for new players, luckily when u die u can put it on very easy to go through it. Some of these quests can be long and have to be done all over if you lose at any given moment. It's also a lot of times completely unclear what the game aspect of you with the quest and u just fail for absolute no reason. It's best to instantly die in those quests and put it on very easy to save you time. They should change this so u can select it directly at the start.

15) Pay model.

U need to buy expansions for 40 bucks when they release
U need to pay for a montly fee 13 bucks a month
There is a pay 2 win shop with it
There is content that u can only buy through the shop also with it.

Basically much like wow a total fucking joke of every pay system slammed together for maximum money gain.

I played it for 2 months and frankly unless u are massively into raid grinding which i couldn't do because of lag i would die endlessly because of it, the game simple does not have much content to validate a monthly fee in this day of age.

Also PC gamers are getting extra screwed by the fact that PS4 players do not pay any sub fee at all. This results in most people sitting on consoles and chat is even more dead then ever.

16) no pay systems for my country, i will never be able to buy anything from the shop as result and have to result to key sites for gameplay. Extremely bad services from them and never saw this before in any game. They happily ignore suggestions or any other solutions on this front. It's clear they don't care at all or are completely out of touch with the environment they push there games on.

Costumer service is also a joke entirely to the point u start to wonder if that company specially with there state of there website and account system is a runned by a bunch of amateurs.

17) Lack of AA settings which makes the game look extremely bad no matter on what setup, i sit at 180 fps mostly with 70 fps in city's when its bussy on a 1080ti/9900k. With GPU mostly sitting half used. But the moment grass comes forwards it looks really really really bad. I never saw a game this ugly in those situations. The solution is to downsample but even then at 1440p which isn't working well in borderless window mode at all the jaggies say and ruin the image quality, 4k even a 1080ti isn't fast enough to push 60+ fps on that front in this game it adds a ton of MS which makes it feel sluggish and not great so u won't be doing that, also again borderless problems which with PC gaming is a standard these days.

For a game series that praises itself on visuals, they sure as hell don't bother with even the very basic of things. Engine overhaul is highly needed.

18) Visuals in general specially first expansion look extremely rough, the art is just straight up bad at times to the point it really looks like a zero effort product. Specially the environments. Shadow bringer fixed this mostly but still visually underwhelming.

19) loading screen the game really, every single map is decked out with load screens to the next area's. Its a big step down from world of warcraft on that front where loading is practically non existent.

20) far more difficult to play then wow when u want to maximize your damage with a class. Rotations are hard to the point i just feel like they added system over system for the sake of it. They should have streamlined it a bit more.

21) Flying mount unlocking requires u to do even more main quests in the form of blue quests which bloats those quests even more out which is annoying to say the least, with finding those wind circles which drags your progress even further down the point why u even wonder why you do it. Because once the flying stuff is unlocked in that region u are done with it. They basically locked the last requirement behind the last quest in that area and then u move onwards. Huge waste of time really as i never revisited those area's. I still did them tho for the sake of it.

22) A ton more minor things like mounts can be used in city's. but i covered the big issue's and will keep it at that.

The positives:

1) Gameplay if it works in general its great, its fun to play and well executed if i ignore the above issue's.

2) Dungeons gameplay itself is fun and well done, if you ignore waiting times.

3) Raid content is better then in wow for sure and i can see why wow community is moving over towards it.

4) People are extremely friendly unlike in wow or other games. I have only found 1 single edgy person in my group ( not even toxic ) in 100+ of hours of gameplay and he got removed fast.

5) Later expansion shadowbringer is indeed far better then earlier content with everything really.

6) Teleports everywhere, no annoying runs like wow has so that's really a good thing

7) Event quests are fun at early levels when people actually do that content, not so much fun after level 15-20 as nobody ever does them with u.

8) U make a entire raid wipe? no problem u are new and people will understand. Again good community.

9) Guilds are small and its hard to get into a guild without knowing what it is. It's not easy to find guilds in this game that after joining 4 guilds i gave up as they where all mostly 4-5 people active and that's about it. They are helpful tho far more then my wow guild ever was. it reminded me of ragnarok / l2 / aoin on that front so that's good.

Conclusion:

Had fun with it for a month of two when i plumbed through the content, It's not good enough for a subscription free at the end of the day. It requires a lot of polish still and its a nice alternative for console users towards world of warcraft, for PC players unless u are a die hard raider i wouldn't bother with it unless u are planning to dip a lot of money into it to boost yourself forwards.

I will return most likely with the next expansion towards it and see what's going on if they did a massive overhaul of the game itself.
 
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royox

Member
Kenpachii Kenpachii i agree with point 1) but the rest is just you not noticing that FFXIV is a story focused MMO. The content is not 'locked', you have to play throught the content to get more content. You are using other MMO standars with FF and most of them doesn't work. I don't expect a hard core WoW player to understand that to unlock the lvl,50 raid first they have to finish the MSQ and then get the crystal tower quest and complete it, thise players are so used to have everything in 5 minutes and their mindset is "the game begins at max lvl". This doesn't work in FF where the game starts at lvl1. For more in deep answer i will come back later im at work with the phone :p

Pd: FFXIV got GOTY award from IGN, congrats YoshiP and team ^^
 
There is so much wrong with that post I don't even know where to start - or if I even want to start. You're entitled to your opinions of course, but most of what I read (I stopped reading halfway through) is based on false assumptions or information.
Like this part
Also PC gamers are getting extra screwed by the fact that PS4 players do not pay any sub fee at all.
No idea where you got this information from, because it's completely false.


Also, getting mad because you couldn't remember the birthdate you registered is completely user error. It has nothing to do with Square 'wanting to know your business', it's a security feature for situations exactly like this lol
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
9) Names in the game are borderline bad and not memorable easily. Incredible difficult to remember ( city names or area's ) unless u are a massive ff nerd. U will struggle to recognise names of area's or remember them even remotely when u plow through them quick.

Sorry but Ala Mhigo, Limsa Lominsa. Ul'dah. I can't even pronounce that even if i tried lamo. Translation team should have used some honestly different names that are easy to remember and actually speakable for western society's. It's just gibberish most of the time.

Then we didn't even address the god awful npc names, most of the npc names etc are all borderline impossible to pronounce which basically makes it, oh its the red haired lady at that village left from main city. It's terrible.
Not that you're wrong about these names being pretty stupid - but they're places you are sent to often and a lot of the areas in the game are even mentioned by name in the voice-acted cut scenes. If you play the game for a few hundred hours, you pick up on stuff like this.

Also - if this bothers you in XIV, be sure to never ever play Final Fantasy XI - because the names in this game are a massive improvement over XI's nonsense names. Sarutabaruta, Aht Urhgan, Alzadaal. Aydeewa Subterrane, Mamool Ja etc. NPC names like Kamih Mapokhalam, Bikho Ronpotteh, or Pyopyoroon. (I swear I didn't make this up, these are all real). Unlike XIV, XI doesn't have the luxury of having these names ever spoken.
 
I went into this game completely blind without using any guides or anything, played up til level 30 was the most fun i had with a mmo in a long time. I cancelled my ps plus sub and havent played it since, (now that i think about it do i really need ps plus for this game??)
 

royox

Member
I went into this game completely blind without using any guides or anything, played up til level 30 was the most fun i had with a mmo in a long time. I cancelled my ps plus sub and havent played it since, (now that i think about it do i really need ps plus for this game??)
Dont need ps+ to play FFXIV
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Shadowbringers (and the Complete Edition, which includes Shadowbringers) is on sale at the Square Enix store for 50% off.

 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Shadowbringers (and the Complete Edition, which includes Shadowbringers) is on sale at the Square Enix store for 50% off.

I just bought it

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Game is also (finally) on sale on Steam.

The Complete Edition is (maybe) bugged - Shadowbringers is $14.99 is you already own the base game.


owv7ELv.png
 
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Keep in mind that unlike every other PC game, the standard Windows version and the Steam version of FFXIV are literally different platforms. You cannot mix and match base game and expansion packs between them, and accounts are completely separated and cannot be transferred back and forth between the two versions. If you buy into the Steam version, WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT, you must buy everything subsequently on Steam and your account cannot be played by a standard Windows version install of the game.
 

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
The only thing that bothered me about setting up an account for FFXIV was its fickleness on what emails it would accept. They really seem to hate Gmail, which is weird.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Keep in mind that unlike every other PC game, the standard Windows version and the Steam version of FFXIV are literally different platforms. You cannot mix and match base game and expansion packs between them, and accounts are completely separated and cannot be transferred back and forth between the two versions. If you buy into the Steam version, WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT, you must buy everything subsequently on Steam and your account cannot be played by a standard Windows version install of the game.
I kinda wish I had known this back when I first bought the game when it came to Steam way back when. I'm kinda stuck in the ecosystem now unfortunately.
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
Live letter today said the trio of trials for this expansion are going to be Weapons. Ruby Weapon is next patch. 5.2 is expected around mid February.
 
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Bigrx1

Banned
15) Pay model.

U need to buy expansions for 40 bucks when they release
U need to pay for a montly fee 13 bucks a month
There is a pay 2 win shop with it
There is content that u can only buy through the shop also with it.

Basically much like wow a total fucking joke of every pay system slammed together for maximum money gain.

Yeah the cash shop thing really bugs me too and a lot of people defend it anyway, saying the subscription model is great for FFXIV and thank god it has a subscription. Then you ask well why, what does the subscription do and why is it great? Then they don't really have an answer, IT JUST IS! Because I mean a subscription doesn't get you everything, which is why people used to say subscriptions were great! Now it's just an extra monthly charge that is there with no benefit. There are tons and tons of cash shop only items as you describe. Having said that, I will concede that while it's bullshit, basically all mmos operate this way now - but it's bullshit in all of them. Just because a lot do it doesn't make it fine. You have to buy base game PLUS subscription PLUS expansions PLUS cash shop if you want some of the nice outfits or housing items or mounts that you may want.

I played FFXIV for quite a while and think it's better than you did as a game, but I ultimately quit also. Still, I do think it's probably the best mmo available right now regardless of me getting bored with it and I've never had more fun with a character like dressing them up and stuff. I also think some things like the Golden Saucer and music and SOME of the story content is really good. Other things really bugged me though especially the massive lack of voice acting - especially now when the game has long since successfully relaunched and made TONS of money. I was really hoping that Shadowbringers would bring at least a bit more voice acting to things like job quests but it's still just MSQ only which irks me a lot. And it's funny if you bring that up people will just say "well you don't need voice acting it's fine!" But, anytime the game adds more voice acting or improves it like with Heavensward people rave about it. Thought you said it doesn't matter!!!? is just bullshit excuses - it matters to me.

Anyway, I may jump back in a few expansions down the line again but it probably is, despite my gripes, the best offering currently. WOW is old and tired, GW2 progression is boring and ESO is just complete shit imo.
 
Yeah the cash shop thing really bugs me too and a lot of people defend it anyway, saying the subscription model is great for FFXIV and thank god it has a subscription. Then you ask well why, what does the subscription do and why is it great? Then they don't really have an answer, IT JUST IS! Because I mean a subscription doesn't get you everything, which is why people used to say subscriptions were great! Now it's just an extra monthly charge that is there with no benefit. There are tons and tons of cash shop only items as you describe.
90% of the cash shop items are items that were given away for FREE during an event. It's a way for people who missed out to get them, if they really want to.

As for the subscription fee confusion, I'm not sure what the confusion is to be honest. Keeping MMO servers up 24/7 costs money and the game is always in development (hence, the reason why we receive a major update every 3 months).
Compare that to something like Destiny 2 which mostly uses P2P servers (no server costs) and yet they still try to finagle $100+ every year for what most players consider a negligible amount of content.
 
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The ratio of content you get to money paid is probably better for MMO's than any other genre. I defy anyone to find another genre of game which gives you as much content to spend your time on for the amount you pay for the sub and maybe a few purchases from the cash shop which are completely optional.

I look at the shit people buy in Call of Duty and FIFA every year, or the vast sums spent on mobile games, and then I look at people bitching about a $12 monthly sub and I can't help but laugh.
 
Finally got this damn mount from 100 wins on the new PvP map
pxSAIvl.png


PvP is fun but it's got a LOT of problems. Apparently they're going to force Freelancer next week (meaning all players get distributed randomly, rather than into their Grand Company) so that might improve the experience for many. Here's hoping! Because right now, 80% of games are a curbstomp due to good PvP players stacking specific GCs.

Edit: Took a better picture lol
 
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JORMBO

Darkness no more
Finally got this damn mount from 100 wins on the new PvP map
fyHIsav.png


PvP is fun but it's got a LOT of problems. Apparently they're going to force Freelancer next week (meaning all players get distributed randomly, rather than into their Grand Company) so that might improve the experience for many. Here's hoping! Because right now, 80% of games are a curbstomp due to good PvP players stacking specific GCs.

I've played around a dozen games and haven't won one yet. I do freelancer and always get stuck on Flames, who lose all the time.
 
I've played around a dozen games and haven't won one yet. I do freelancer and always get stuck on Flames, who lose all the time.
Yeah, Flames had it rough in most of the games I played on Primal DC. However, late at night (like 1-3am Eastern), there were many times where we'd run into a Flames team that absolutely STOMPED us. They were clearly a premade group that queued in at the same time, which is what they're aiming to fix on Tuesday by forcing Freelancer for everyone.
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
Just completed my first raid last night - the 24 man Nier raid. It was a lot of fun. There were times where so many special effects were flashing on the screen that I couldn't tell what was happening and died but we still got it done and never wiped.
 

JORMBO

Darkness no more
Yeah, Flames had it rough in most of the games I played on Primal DC. However, late at night (like 1-3am Eastern), there were many times where we'd run into a Flames team that absolutely STOMPED us. They were clearly a premade group that queued in at the same time, which is what they're aiming to fix on Tuesday by forcing Freelancer for everyone.

Have you been able to find games during the morning/afternoon? I had some time off work this week and tried to queue a few times and it never popped (EST time zone). Might help if they brought back 24 man versions.


Just completed my first raid last night - the 24 man Nier raid. It was a lot of fun. There were times where so many special effects were flashing on the screen that I couldn't tell what was happening and died but we still got it done and never wiped.

There are graphics options to turn off other players effects or turn them down. I turn them off completely, hide player names, etc. or else the large raids are hard for me to see what is going on.
 
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royox

Member
Just completed my first raid last night - the 24 man Nier raid. It was a lot of fun. There were times where so many special effects were flashing on the screen that I couldn't tell what was happening and died but we still got it done and never wiped.

24 man raids are "casual content" intended to be fun and casual friendly. Except when they try something new and newbs cry rivers of salt at the forums xD (like when Ozma...oooooh the good days)
 
Have you been able to find games during the morning/afternoon? I had some time off work this week and tried to queue a few times and it never popped (EST time zone). Might help if they brought back 24 man versions.
Yes, but the queues were EXTREMELY long. Usually start popping around noon Eastern but expect 30+ minute queues, at least for Adders on Primal. Thankfully, you could set the game to play Sound Effects when the game isn't focused so I would watch movies or even play other games while in queue lol.
And yes, I agree they should bring back the 24 man queues, but the new map doesn't seem suited for lower player counts so it'll probably be some time before they're reintroduced.

24 man raids are "casual content" intended to be fun and casual friendly. Except when they try something new and newbs cry rivers of salt at the forums xD (like when Ozma...oooooh the good days)
The first 24 man in each series can be called casual, sure. But by the third it becomes something that essentially weeds out the casual players. Orbonne was no joke for a lot of DF groups lol
 
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buizel

Banned
Looking at this it seems FFXIV offers so much content per expansion compared to Elder Scrolls Online, which apart from being monetized out the wazoo ($11k to level crafting to max, 1000's of furnishings at $50 avg) - each expansion has 1 New Zone, sometimes a new skill, sometimes 1 new race, and 1 new trial and 2 dungeons.

This game seems to have loads more, any PS4 players wanna show me the ropes :3

For the record I like games like this for the immersive world/music, story and making friends. I like playing first person with little information on screen as possible (how I play Elder Scrolls atm)
 
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royox

Member
This game seems to have loads more, any PS4 players wanna show me the ropes :3

For the record I like games like this for the immersive world/music, story and making friends. I like playing first person with little information on screen as possible (how I play Elder Scrolls atm)

PS4 players share servers with PC players :)

Game community is very friendly and the music may be the best of any MMORPG. Playing in 1st person is possible but nobody would recommend that, the game is very VERY mechanic-heavy where you need to see all your surroundings and react fast to prevent damage.

As for content, each expansion has a new "world/continent" with some zones to explore. New dungeons, raids, alliances, jobs (classes) and some times even races (we had 2 on ShB for example). Also each expansion gives every job new skills, changes in gameplay that can make a job totally diferent (Summoner now summon Bahamut and Phoenix...ffs 6 years ago Summoner was just a dot mage without even summoning xD).

This video is NOT representative of real gameplay, just a showdown of the new skills of the expansion, but can give you an idea of what you will find




And regarding music...well...I would never end posting Youtube videos of bosses...just go to youtube, write "FFXIV boss music" and hear some of the stuff.




I'll send you a PM with an invitation code that you can use if you create an account :)
 
24 man raids are "casual content" intended to be fun and casual friendly. Except when they try something new and newbs cry rivers of salt at the forums xD (like when Ozma...oooooh the good days)
I remember watching people trying to do math on Construct 7. That was a miracle, I hope that Squenix has more math-based puzzles on bosses someday.
 

buizel

Banned
PS4 players share servers with PC players :)

Game community is very friendly and the music may be the best of any MMORPG. Playing in 1st person is possible but nobody would recommend that, the game is very VERY mechanic-heavy where you need to see all your surroundings and react fast to prevent damage.

As for content, each expansion has a new "world/continent" with some zones to explore. New dungeons, raids, alliances, jobs (classes) and some times even races (we had 2 on ShB for example). Also each expansion gives every job new skills, changes in gameplay that can make a job totally diferent (Summoner now summon Bahamut and Phoenix...ffs 6 years ago Summoner was just a dot mage without even summoning xD).

This video is NOT representative of real gameplay, just a showdown of the new skills of the expansion, but can give you an idea of what you will find




And regarding music...well...I would never end posting Youtube videos of bosses...just go to youtube, write "FFXIV boss music" and hear some of the stuff.




I'll send you a PM with an invitation code that you can use if you create an account :)


People say that about ESO. Very mechanic based, but I mainly play first person and I'm pretty rad at it :D

Yeah I already like the FFXIV compositions, sound very magical.
 
These all BLU Bahamut & Alexander raids for the new mount are killing me.
They wouldn't be so bad if people knew how to fucking tank and heal properly lol. It's like running EX raids in ARR all over again where the average player can't handle a simple tank swap or somehow forgets to heal the MT. I had to take the reins as MT in the Coil to get my clears.
Probably going to have to do the same for Alex but I don't think I have faith in the average player's ability to handle actual Savage mechanics. Not to imply that I'm perfect or anything of the sort, but at least I attempt to come prepared and don't expect to be carried. /rant

Oh well, at least I got my PvP mount prior to 5.18 forcing Freelancer. Now it's going to take much, much longer to get it.
 
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Welp, I did it.
bJt0vjS.png

My previous post underestimated how difficult BLU tanking is during the Savage Alex raids. One mistimed Diamondback among two tanks and the entire run is over.
A8S was brutal (pun intended) but a really awesome fight and overcoming it all-BLU synced felt so, so good. I'm glad SE added an incentive to go back and complete these raids since I took a break during Heavensward. That said, I'm having nightmares thinking of BLU at 70... BLU UCOB/UWU, anyone? :messenger_hushed:
 
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Valonquar

Member
Wau grats! I got busy at work and haven't gotten to focus on the BLU grind. Going to miss the train pretty soon. Nearly have all my crafts at 80 tho so I have that going for me I guess.
 
Wau grats! I got busy at work and haven't gotten to focus on the BLU grind. Going to miss the train pretty soon. Nearly have all my crafts at 80 tho so I have that going for me I guess.
I almost missed the train myself! Activity in the BLU Discord I'm in is rapid decreasing unfortunately, though I think it's partly due to subscriptions lapsing. We are in a bit of a lull between patches, after all.
I think activity will pick up again when 5.2 is released, so don't worry. If you're on Primal I can send you a link to the Discord.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
My son and I have started back in on this game and we've been having a blast. We decided to switch things up to ease back into it and changed our classes (so we both started at level 1 again). He's a lancer, I'm a conjurer. Previously he did mostly magic classes and I played DPS, so it's a fun turnabout.

I swear we'll eventually get back to the main quest. At some point.
 
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