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[Dreamwriter]

How does it play with a controller?

They did a great job getting it to work on controller. To use a skill, hold a trigger button down and press up,down,left,or right on d-pad, or any of the 4 face buttons. So you have instant access to 8 abilities with the left trigger, 8 more with the right trigger, and 8 more with both triggers. And then you can turn pages to more sets of 16 skills with the shoulder bumpers (the 8 with both triggers are "global").

 

[Kyrios]

I just launched this game for the first time since ARR's launch month and it said I have 4 days of playtime remaining...what?

Could be the free login event they are hosting right now.

 

[SoundPulse]

Well i'm quite pleased to hear that's the case. One other thing i'd love to know is if you can Mod the UI of the game, as the screenshots make it seem intrusively busy. WoW is normally like this too but its extensive mod support let you completely clean it up.

Like this
https://s.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2010/09/raid-before-1283826763.jpg
VS
This
http://i.imgur.com/cMiN7Ya.jpg

You can't mod it, but the game gives you a lot of freedom to mess with the HUD in-game to your liking.

I just launched this game for the first time since ARR's launch month and it said I have 4 days of playtime remaining...what?

There's a free period right now.

 

[Fou-Lu]

I encourage everyone interested to try out FFXIV, though I would like them to help boost the population of Roegaedyns and Elezen. We have enough walking potatoes and cat girls with mismatched eye colors.

My only level 30 Elezen Paladin may get brought back to life someday soon. I just need to find people to play with that don't mind that I won't play more than a few hours a week. How hard is it to level up other classes once you've cleared a lot of the low level quests? Is it easier to just start new characters?

I don't mind being the tank, but I think I kinda suck at it.

 

[Killthee]

Well i'm quite pleased to hear that's the case. One other thing i'd love to know is if you can Mod the UI of the game, as the screenshots make it seem intrusively busy. WoW is normally like this too but its extensive mod support let you completely clean it up.

Like this
https://s.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2010/09/raid-before-1283826763.jpg
VS
This
http://i.imgur.com/cMiN7Ya.jpg

No mod support. They've been talking about adding it for so long now that i doubt it'll happen. The only thing you can do is move, hide, and resize the hud elements.

 

[AuthenticM]

I'm actually interested in starting to play FFXIV, having heard nothing but praise here and i also do like the look/artstyle of it. However, i'm quite held back by the MMO format and i say that as someone who has played and still plays World of Warcraft 12 years straight.

I primarily want to play FFXIV for the world and story, and my experience with World of Warcraft is that the extremely cut-throat MMO community, which often has no time at all for newbies, "slackers", or non-optimisers could really ruin my day whenever the game forces you into group content. And unlike WoW, i almost certainly wouldn't be playing FFXIV with family and friends. It would be truly "single player lite".

Someone help me get over this final hurdle.

You can play like 98% of the game alone, at your leisure. When you have to play with others, there is a matchmaking feature that makes everything simple. On top of the matchmaking feature, you can create a party for a specific event (such as a Trial or a Dungeon), and then decide to do it unsynchronized, which means that everyone gets to keep their level and item level. The result of that is that you will all slaughter the monsters easily. This can be the prefered method if you don't care about challenge and just want to enjoy the story.

I would tell you to play on the server Ultros, which is where GAF plays. You can join GAF's guild, which is full of cool and helpful people. They've helped me many times.

Well i'm quite pleased to hear that's the case. One other thing i'd love to know is if you can Mod the UI of the game, as the screenshots make it seem intrusively busy. WoW is normally like this too but its extensive mod support let you completely clean it up.

Like this
https://s.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2010/09/raid-before-1283826763.jpg
VS
This
http://i.imgur.com/cMiN7Ya.jpg

You can't mod the UI, but you can move around everything, resize everything, and choose which element should be visible or not. There's a lot of customization. I took the time to move and resize everything so that my UI was clean and uncluttered.

And regarding cutscenes in dungeons, as others have said, this is only an issue in the final two 2.0 dungeons. You absolutely need to skip every cutscene, as they are long and no one will wait for you. But starting with the 2.x patches, the devs realized their error and designed dungeons from then on to have cutscenes only after the boss is killed and the party is disbanded, so you can watch them stress-free. Moreover, every single cutscene in the game can be rewatched from your bedroom, accessible from any inn. So for those two last 2.0 dungeons, I got to watch the cutscenes there.

 

[Kalentan]

Was pretty sure they changed their stance on cross play? Either way Yoshida has tried to work with them on budging there multiple times.

They did. Their rules is that they allow cross play but one of their agreements is that for games with cross play, Xbox users need to be able to turn off cross play, if they desire. That doesn't work with an MMO.

 

[Scrawnton]

I've been thinking about resubbing. I was all caught up with most raid gear until the most recent content patch. I'll probably sub again over xmas and play for a month until DQ8 comes out on 3DS.

 

[Slime]

After many hours of exploring FFXV's dead, empty world, I find myself missing Eorzea terribly. There's more personality and lore in a single zone than there is in the entirety of FFXV's open world. Definitely re-subscribing when I'm done. I need to be in a Final Fantasy world that feels alive.

 

[Zomba13]

While I will say FFXIV is the best FF in years and how the story and characters are really good I will also 100% admit that there are parts of the game that suuuuuuuuuck. Even ignoring your standard MMO sidequests the filler slog in the main story before Titan is one of the worst, most immersion breaking things ever. "Prepare for your fight against titan... by getting me some wine and cheese so we can throw a party!". I understand that in the end it's supposed to be one of those "you see, waxing a car and cleaning my shit really did help you fight!" but it's just a train of boring quests with boring stories behind them.

After that though the story just gets better and better even factoring in "filler" quests designed to move you from one location to another or to slowly build characters and factions. Heavensward is amazing, the explansion and the 3.x patches. Worst bit about HW is that is chickens out on a cool plot idea returning it to the status quo and some people don't like the bit with moogles.

At the point I am I'm just playing each patch for stories. I want to get back in but the main thing turning me off now is just the grind for equips. It's the whole 2 dungeons a patch cycle. It felt better with 3 because when it's 2 and you're doing it daily it's always either this one or that one. Plus because of the gear progression there is always correct gear, either the tome stuff or the raid stuff meaning that my motivation isn't there like it was because by the time I play next it'll be outdated and I'll just have to do what I would've been doing anyway to gear up.

Still though. It is great and fun but I've just become burnt out. Might try again to get properly back into it when the next patch hits. And of course, I'll be there day one for Stormblood with the digital deluxe (unless this time the collectors edition has a statue that ends up being bigger than an amiibo).

 

[KeyBladerXIII]

My only level 30 Elezen Paladin may get brought back to life someday soon. I just need to find people to play with that don't mind that I won't play more than a few hours a week. How hard is it to level up other classes once you've cleared a lot of the low level quests? Is it easier to just start new characters?

I don't mind being the tank, but I think I kinda suck at it.

Oh, it's quite easy with your original character. Even if you did all the side quests on your first class, you still have daily dungeon roulettes, the hunting log, easy farmable levequests, and The Palace of the Dead to bring new classes up pretty quickly.

 

[Evil Monkey DTT]

I've played about a month of the game.... not as in playing for a month as in literal playtime adds up to 30 days. I love xiv, it has a place in my heart no game has ever captured. It's not my first mmo but it was the first I really gave a shit about.

 

[The Last Wizard]

ARR took some time for me as well to get into but once it did I was hooked, I'm really attached to my character now. I had initially made her for the PS3 beta and was gonna scrap her but she was still linked to my account when I finally got the game(waited for PS4 version) and decided I didn't wanna go through the character creator again and I'm glad I didn't. She's hands down my favortie character I've created in a game.

The lead up to heavensward was great, then it slowed down with the dragon song war but the finale to that was fucking perfect, I haven't played since July when I realized I screwed up during the atma weapon quest and lost the will to play but I can't wait for the next expansion and hope we get a pro patch.

 

[Linkark07]

XIV is one of my favorite MMORPGs for sure. It has beautiful graphics, a great story and great gameplay. Sadly, I just find it boring. It may be because I'm finding all theme parks MMORPGs these days boring and I'm too old for them. Still, gonna try and play some days when my vacation start.

 

[hamchan]

Pretty hyped for the next expansion. Heavensward shows they know what they're doing in terms of handling story.

 

[Demoskinos]

I've got 4000+ hours logged. My most played game ever by far. Its... Its real good.

 

[TheYanger]

The "single player" part of WoW is like that too but once you hit the multiplayer content your quite likely to be kicked to the curb by the rest of the group at even the lowest difficulty if you're seen as holding people up.

That's...not true at all. not any more than any other game. They're both forgiving enough that nobody cares as long as you're not legitimately afk most of the time. Same in FF, except for the mentioned dungeon near 50 that has infinity cutscenes that everyone skips. That's a pretty silly decision, but they're also important so.

ARR was amazing my favorite mmo experience and I've been playing mmos for over 13 years. I didn't like Heavenwards very much though I'm not a fan of the slow leveling I don't even mind slow leveling I played Everquest and FFXI. I'm still not sure who the people that wanted slow leveling are since I never met anyone in game that was happy about having to watch netflix while they do fates.

Huh? slow? Heavensward is just like every other modern MMO expansion. You can go from 50 to 60 in like a day of solid play. I played a few hours at a time and it took me less than a week. The longest parts are the forced dungeons and watching a ton of cutscenes tbh.

The base game will take a few days of /played time, as most new MMO experiences do now, and the xpac takes significantly less. FF11 and EQ aren't even in the same league.

 

[kurahador]

The "single player" part of WoW is like that too but once you hit the multiplayer content your quite likely to be kicked to the curb by the rest of the group at even the lowest difficulty if you're seen as holding people up.

Umm...not at all. As long as you're not being dumb by aggroing every mobs and know your role in a dungeon, everyone is just nice.

Only the hardcore parts like higher difficulty dungeons and raids where ppl are more critical, but those are not essential if you're playing solo.

 

[Copper]

Playing though FFXV is getting me in the mood to play this again. I'll probably start playing again to gear up for Stormblood which sounds really promising.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

That's...not true at all. not any more than any other game. They're both forgiving enough that nobody cares as long as you're not legitimately afk most of the time. Same in FF, except for the mentioned dungeon near 50 that has infinity cutscenes that everyone skips. That's a pretty silly decision, but they're also important so.

Yeah I found both to be OK. I've been a pretty rare casual solo player in both games since basically The Burning Crusade... I've returned to both games a handful of times, maybe once or twice a year... and basically all I do is solo quest any new content and maybe do a few casual random dungeons. Granted, I grew up playing MMOs from AC through DAOC to WoW so I sort of know the basic mechanics by second nature...

But I was still pretty noob at the content, and I found the random PUGs for leveling dungeons in both games to both be a fair bit of fun but also the communities were by and large pretty accepting -- especially if you're just honest about being new.

The few times I ever did see someone get a little annoyed in a PUG was because people were either going AFK or somebody that was talking too much in group chat was fucking up. Usually I would just say at the start up any dungeon run, 'hey, new console noob here, I know how to play MMOs but new to FF XIV,' and something to that effect, and basically every time the XIV players (and even usually in WoW haha tho maaybe a touch less) were cool about it.

To that point, as well, FF XIV is a really fun solo leveling game IMO. The public quests or whatever they were called in XIV (sorry I played a lot of WAR) were always great, and I found the way the main story quests used dungeons to be super accommodating and really well paced and directed. Combined with the Job system and re-rolls, almost every LFG queue for dungeons always seemed pretty good, too.

Again I haven't played a lot of XIV.... I've been playing on and off during 'free weekend trials' since ARR release and I'm still barely just working through the 40s (up to 47 or 48 I think) but I return at least once or twice a year, and every time I have a blast -- only reason I don't sub is because I don't have the time for a MMO, otherwise XIV is probably my favorite FF other than XII since about VII, Tactics, and IX haha. Heck probably even above IX

 

[Necrovex]

Bought XIV and its expansion during the Square Sale. The patcher is complete ass. I've been trying to down load the base game, and I typically get .1 MBS, at best. Making me think I may have to wait to return to the USA to download it. Which means I'll have less time to play it then compared to now.

 

[LowParry]

I think I may return. I'm like 2 or 3 major patches behind? Got a ways to catch up and work on getting my gathering professions maxed.

 

[Hasemo]

Since we're sharing our experience with the game, I'll add my 2 cents.

I've enjoyed big parts of the story, especially post HW and many other aspects of the game, but the endgame part for midcore players who are not interested in raiding never did it for me.

Yes, new dungeons added with each patch are cool the first 1-3 times when you go through them, but after that they become a 20+ minute slog of running in a straight line, killing packs of enemies which don't drop anything worthwhile/don't give xp etc. There's almost 0 chance that you will die outside of bosses, unless tank/healer is really bad. I hate having my time wasted, so I usually stopped my subscription shortly after getting through the content.

I'd usually go back when a new patch hit, finish new MSQ, new trial HM, new dungeons, grind for 2-3 days and get bored. Luckily this changed with the addition, or rather the expansion of the Palace of the Dead dungeon. While nothing groundbreaking, this random dungeon is a great way to get exp, tomes, gil, a decent weapon, and get used to playing with new classes.

While the first part, floors 1-50 aren't that great, I ran through 51-100 multiple times and usually had a blast, be it with friends or randoms.
The best part was definitely trying to solo floors 1-100 without dying for the achievement. In the end I got to 132 with a Warrior, a class that I barely play (my "real" WAR is on level ~30).

Long story short, give PotD a go if you haven't and if you have a break between levels where you'd have to grind dungeons/fates for exp, do PotD instead!

My other complaint is about the exploration. WoW, FFXI had the sense of wonder and danger where you got into new areas. While some of it might be nostalgia speaking, FFXIV ARR areas felt super cramped, especially with both high and low level zones on the same maps. HW was better in that regard, but the changed was from "too small" to "big and empty", so I can't say I'm a huge fan of that as well. I really hope they will strike a good balance in Stormblood.

 

[Mothman91]

Keep on hearing about this, definitely after FFXV, I wouldn't mind playing it.

Problem is, how long is the main storyline? That's the only thing I want to touch, I already play WoW as it is.

 

[Alucrid]

game doesn't seem that great. not sure why you'd spend a whole lot of time on it

 

[Dreamwriter]

Keep on hearing about this, definitely after FFXV, I wouldn't mind playing it.

Problem is, how long is the main storyline? That's the only thing I want to touch, I already play WoW as it is.

The game comes with a 30 day subscription - that's plenty of time to finish the main storyline of A Realm Reborn, they really sped it up when they released Heavensward. The Heavensward storyline, though, might take a bit - it does require some level grinding at a couple points, and with the flying mounts there's more exploration that needs doing.

 

[Kagari]

game doesn't seem that great. not sure why you'd spend a whole lot of time on it

Oh you.

 

[Chessr]

I play this game to.
On hold atm because of XV.
I am ready for 3.5

 

[TheYanger]

Since we're sharing our experience with the game, I'll add my 2 cents.

I've enjoyed big parts of the story, especially post HW and many other aspects of the game, but the endgame part for midcore players who are not interested in raiding never did it for me.

Yes, new dungeons added with each patch are cool the first 1-3 times when you go through them, but after that they become a 20+ minute slog of running in a straight line, killing packs of enemies which don't drop anything worthwhile/don't give xp etc. There's almost 0 chance that you will die outside of bosses, unless tank/healer is really bad. I hate having my time wasted, so I usually stopped my subscription shortly after getting through the content.

I'd usually go back when a new patch hit, finish new MSQ, new trial HM, new dungeons, grind for 2-3 days and get bored. Luckily this changed with the addition, or rather the expansion of the Palace of the Dead dungeon. While nothing groundbreaking, this random dungeon is a great way to get exp, tomes, gil, a decent weapon, and get used to playing with new classes.

While the first part, floors 1-50 aren't that great, I ran through 51-100 multiple times and usually had a blast, be it with friends or randoms.
The best part was definitely trying to solo floors 1-100 without dying for the achievement. In the end I got to 132 with a Warrior, a class that I barely play (my "real" WAR is on level ~30).

Long story short, give PotD a go if you haven't and if you have a break between levels where you'd have to grind dungeons/fates for exp, do PotD instead!

My other complaint is about the exploration. WoW, FFXI had the sense of wonder and danger where you got into new areas. While some of it might be nostalgia speaking, FFXIV ARR areas felt super cramped, especially with both high and low level zones on the same maps. HW was better in that regard, but the changed was from "too small" to "big and empty", so I can't say I'm a huge fan of that as well. I really hope they will strike a good balance in Stormblood.

The issue has always been the console versions holding it back when it comes to zone size, sadly. I don't mind discrete zones at all - I loved EQ in my day, but I agree some of the design is restricted in FF at times. Heavensward zones are largely much bigger and more open, however. I appreciated that.

Keep on hearing about this, definitely after FFXV, I wouldn't mind playing it.

Problem is, how long is the main storyline? That's the only thing I want to touch, I already play WoW as it is.

It's kind of the perfect compliment because it plays similarly enough that you'll feel sorta at home, and the things it does well are...not OPPOSITE, but very different from the things wow does well. FF14 (SWTOR too when it was new) is kind of the perfect game to just play through the story form time to time and then drop.