-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Lttp (Rttp?): Final Fantasy XIV, or holy shit is this game good
- Thread starter AuthenticM
- Start date
decoyplatypus
Member
All this FFXIV love has convinced me: when Aeana does the next GAF Plays FF thread, I will be giving FFXIV a shot. I haven't played an online RPG since PSO and have never played an MMO. It should be interesting.
Ardenyal
Member
I really liked the main quest line of 14, kind of light hearted on the surface but there are plenty of darker tones to it.
The end game felt too grindy for my liking though, don't know what the current end game is like but when I was playing the game was too clingy with the weekly assignments and such.
The end game felt too grindy for my liking though, don't know what the current end game is like but when I was playing the game was too clingy with the weekly assignments and such.
J_ToSaveTheDay
Member
What is progression like at the end of the base game going into Heavensward for brand new players nowadays?
I got to lv50 maybe 2 weeks after the game came out (A Realm Reborn, not 1.0) and spent the next 2 months kinda doing endgame grind stuff, prior to Heavensward's release. And even after I quit, I know plenty of stuff was added to boost your character's relic weapon even higher, and newer sets of armor became available. I even tried to resub and pick up where I had left off last shortly before Heavensward launched, and no one could tell me where I needed to start, so I very quickly dropped off.
I have wanted to go back again after Heavensward, and I do want to start completely fresh -- new character, new server, everything. Just wondering if new players are required to do some of the base game's endgame stuff before progressing to Heavensward content, or if it suffices just to do main story quests. I get that you occasionally get whisked off to a dungeon that requires a group, but can you primarily get to Heavensward without having to do some of the base game's late-story group quests ("fake" raids) now? Can you skip all of the relic progression and still be suitably geared going into Heavensward's endgame -- since Relic progression seemed to be such a focal point of the base game's updates going into Heavensward, I'm more or less wondering if that progression carries over into Heavensward's progression?
I got to lv50 maybe 2 weeks after the game came out (A Realm Reborn, not 1.0) and spent the next 2 months kinda doing endgame grind stuff, prior to Heavensward's release. And even after I quit, I know plenty of stuff was added to boost your character's relic weapon even higher, and newer sets of armor became available. I even tried to resub and pick up where I had left off last shortly before Heavensward launched, and no one could tell me where I needed to start, so I very quickly dropped off.
I have wanted to go back again after Heavensward, and I do want to start completely fresh -- new character, new server, everything. Just wondering if new players are required to do some of the base game's endgame stuff before progressing to Heavensward content, or if it suffices just to do main story quests. I get that you occasionally get whisked off to a dungeon that requires a group, but can you primarily get to Heavensward without having to do some of the base game's late-story group quests ("fake" raids) now? Can you skip all of the relic progression and still be suitably geared going into Heavensward's endgame -- since Relic progression seemed to be such a focal point of the base game's updates going into Heavensward, I'm more or less wondering if that progression carries over into Heavensward's progression?
You can just follow the main scenario now from 2.x and it will lead you straight into Heavensward-- the main scenario quests now give you gear that covers you. The only thing you have to go out of your way to do is clear the Hard versions of Ifrit, Titan and Garuda.
None of the base game's endgame content is required for Heavenward, though you shouldn't have a hard time doing it if you chose to complete it. Once you beat the two 8-Man Main Scenario dungeons, all you need to do is follow the Main Scenario through the patch storyline into Heavensward. It's a decent chunk of quests, rewarding gear that will move you into Heavensward item levels. Once you reach level 60, you can start doing a weekly quest that features different content every week, some of that will be "A Realm Reborn" content, so you can go back and do it for increased reward.
As for the relic, the progression doesn't carry over. The only thing you receive if you completed your A Realm Reborn relic weapon (It's final form is the Zeta Weapon) is the ability to skip the first step of the Anima weapon quest line (The Heavensward Relic equivalent). The first step of the Anima Weapon Quest line is very easy though, so you aren't missing out. Also keep in mind that the relic weapon is not the only way for weapon progression at this point. If you play the game casually you'll have about two or three choices of weapons. The tome weapon which is purchased with end game currency, the anima weapon, or a weapon from some sort of content like the Palace of the Dead. You can also pursue weapons from Extreme Primals or Savage Raids.
SoundPulse
Banned
You can absolutely just bee-line to Ishgard by laser-focusing on the MSQ. I was already 60 before I set foot in there, though, so I can't really speak for the leveling process once there for those that weren't. The Crystal Tower and Relic stuff is 100% optional, although CT is kind of a joke now.
If you're not too picky, you can just wait until Idyllshire to grab i260 gear, which upgrades to i270. Palace of the Dead will also give you a basically free i255 weapon, and you can start that at level 17-ish.
That was a REALLY dumb decision. The general gated-ness of the game is very non-mmo, it works to service the story but it feels really fucking silly too. I'd power through it, just the first two patches are bad, the rest is quite good. I'm with you in principle though, if you go back to the Heavensward OT there's a couple pages where I'm ranting about it pretty hard at the time, like 15 hours of bullshit you had to do between 2.0 and 3.0 release. And about 6 or 7 of it is TOTALLY worthless. Much prefer the western approach of 'yes there's a story, but we're not going to force you to see it if you don't care' - which is beneficial since so much of the ancillary stuff is required in 14 that you could absolutely understand the story without, it made sense for it to be padded out a bit when it was the only content being drip fed to people, but then in bulk as a new player? total shit.
GoldenCrow
Member
Incase anyone is unaware there is currently a free login campaign underway.
http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/3e7224256c7c14741a020df28bbc2bafcde11821
http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/3e7224256c7c14741a020df28bbc2bafcde11821
Well, they have stated they won't be doing it again, so they definitely learned from their decision in this case.
Personally I don't think it was a mistake, I just really think it could have been done better. I do like that because the main scenario plays such a big part in how the game is actually structured, they wanted to that to be consistent for every player, old or new. I think they should have put some time into condensing the patch content questlines into 5-10 quests with large cutscenes, cut the bullshit, but let the player experience the events themselves, don't skip them over it or give them a synopsis. The story is such a big part of the game, the game should help the player feel involved in it.
Action based. The combat is very similar to WoW with a longer Global Cooldown when starting out (2.5 seconds). When you reach Level 60 your GCD will be shorter and you'll have a lot of things you'll be using during that time you are on GCD.
Nobody hate subscription fees more than I do, and it's my largest turn-off from an MMO....
... But FFXIV is a game that I CLEARLY see that subscription money being funneled directly back into the game, and I have been consistently blown about at the staggering amount of content added per patch.
I view it like this; a company like, say, Bioware charges $15 for a DLC mission like Omega or Leviathan. It only lasts a couple of hours, but it's good content.
For that same fee, as a subscription, per patch the game receives more content than that. More story, more missions, more raids, more gear, more mini-games, etc. I've come to almost view the sub fee as paying for a constant stream of quality DLC.
However, to mitigate the cost as well, you can easily beat the entire Main Scenario Quest in your free month period. I intended to only do just that, but the story was so captivating, I subscribed just to keep going and going and going, all through Heavensward.
If the game ever starts to bore me or give me a lull, I can cancel my subscription at any point, and there is often PLENTY of free weeks or weekends to tease me back. If I like what I'm seeing (which is often) I re-subscribe for a few months to get mileage out of it.
All in all, I've paid very little for the game overall, gotten a ton of mileage out of it, and what I have paid for has been beyond impressive.
If someone like me, who hates subscription fees and even MMOs in general, can make this work, I truly believe anyone can.
Zenaku
Member
Not reading much of the thread to avoid potential spoilers, but I've been playing the game real slow (couple of hours per month) despite enjoying it; I just can't find a lot of time lately. Played it 2 days straight in October though, I needed to get through a couple quests to take part in the Halloween event.
After starting as a summonner (or whatever they're called, playing in Japanese here) I've tried virtually all the classes available so far and fell in love with the archer class. Running circles around enemies, hitting them with poison arrows and the like without them being able to touch you, its a lot more fun than stopping, casting a spell, moving, stopping to cast another spell, cancelling to move, starting to cast again... No idea how it plays later on, but magic feels a bit boring to me.
After starting as a summonner (or whatever they're called, playing in Japanese here) I've tried virtually all the classes available so far and fell in love with the archer class. Running circles around enemies, hitting them with poison arrows and the like without them being able to touch you, its a lot more fun than stopping, casting a spell, moving, stopping to cast another spell, cancelling to move, starting to cast again... No idea how it plays later on, but magic feels a bit boring to me.
Pilgrimzero
Member
I got a free week or something but a new update had just been released so I couldn't log in cause it was so congested. So I never got to play it and I don't think I can get another free week.
HelloNewman
Member
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.
Maybe that's why a lot of people don't have as fond memories of the ARR campaign as of HW.
HW was just fucking superb.
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order
Member
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.
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.
Play on the Lamia server, extremely friendly people play on that server from my experience. I never played a MMO outside of Guild Wars 2 and the FF14 community helped me so much getting into the game. Like no hyperbole, people WANT to help you out in the game.
Making a party is as simple as joining up a queue and letting the game match you up with people automatically. And I've never once was yelled at for making a mistake by veteran players and most will tell you what to expect of you and the bosses/enemies when you say you're new to whatever instance you're about to run.
SoundPulse
Banned
Seriously. Ask and most people will help. If you don't speak up, they'll just assume you know what you're doing. They want to clear too. The community is actually pretty friendly as long as it's not endgame stuff.
Look up guides for your class, maybe consider looking up guides for the content if you want to make sure things go smoothly, and you'll be fine. Most of the MSQ content (dungeons, trials) is pretty easy.
Look up guides for your class, maybe consider looking up guides for the content if you want to make sure things go smoothly, and you'll be fine. Most of the MSQ content (dungeons, trials) is pretty easy.
Xaero Gravity
NEXT LEVEL lame™
It gets more story heavy later on, but don't expect a good one. It's better than most MMO plots, but that's not saying much.
Kremzeek
Member
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order
Member
To expand, it's not that i'm new to MMOs, quite the opposite, i know a lot about how they work which is precisely why i don't want the extreme intensity of World of Warcraft, which I've had enough of.
True but ARR had its share of highs - particularly the Ishgard quests and, perhaps I'm a bit biased because my starting city was Uldah, the
refugee
Okay, sorry about that. I guess the best way to describe it is that it's pretty much "progress at your leisure". A lot of freedom to do what you want but there is a lot of grind starting after the main story. I find the experience very easy-going.
Sumio Mondo
Member
"Spare me your contempt! If you want to blame someone for the mess the world's in, blame yourselves or the gods!" This was spoken in one of the earlier main story quests by Ungust.
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order
Member
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.
Supposedly Microsofts cross play requirements require an Xbox only mode. The only way an MMO could provide an Xbox only mode is by having an Xbox only server which is the whole reason the game was never ported in the first place. Game probably won't get ported until they can get an exemption from that requirement.
The game does a pretty good job at incentivizing carries for new people by rewarding bonuses to everyone in the group when someone is new. It's very unlikely you'll come across dicks while leveling cause nothing forces high lv people to run leveling content and if they're running it it's usually to lv an alt class and in which case a new person means bonus such as extra xp.
At 50 though, the base game lv cap, you should be aware that the last dungeon for the base main story is an 8 player dungeon with lots of cutscenes thrown in the middle of it. Randoms will definitely not wait for you to watch them all so you can either rush it with them and watch the cutscenes later in an inn or put up a party finder group letting everyone who joins know that you will be watching them so they don't rush ahead of you.
That's the only part of the game I can see you encountering dicks while lving. Devs learned their lesson after that and all subsequent story heavy dungeons have their cutscenes before and after the dungeon encounter to avoid the issue.
Nah it was never like that in my experience so far. I've been doing a lot of the later stuff and I just say it's my first time running a particular instance and always had help throughout it. People even hold "practice" parties to go through raids or instances.
Basically, you'll never be kicked to the curb in anything.
His Majesty
Banned
It's the same in FFXIV. Nothing more disappointing than having to skip the cut-scenes in the culmination of the main story so you can keep up with the party. It's not that the story in the base game is so good, I'd just like to see the end result after 100 hours of questing. The story in Heavensward is better but you will still be grinding a lot and doing boring fetch quests 95% of the time. Also the mandatory content between the finale of the base game and Heavensward is pure torture.
The music, graphics and atmosphere are top notch though.
SoundPulse
Banned
Ah.
Well, as I said, most of the main content is really quite easy. As long as you have even a smidgen of competence with your role and/or a willingness to learn from your mistakes, most people will be happy with that. You're not really going to get 'kicked to the curb'. There are a few trials where I expect to wipe at least once when I see a party of new players (Steps of Salt and Nabriales tbh), but The Echo mechanic means people will usually stick around for a do-over.
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order
Member
I'm not an elite player but difficulty in MMOs never worries me. What worries me with FFXIV is not being able to take my time with story content that happens within the multiplayer. In WoW nobody is going to wait for you to watch cut-scenes or talk to NPCs no matter how well you perform in the actual fights.
LastChance2Frag
Neo Member
Been working through my backlog to finally try this. Thread explained a few things so thanks for posting. Just gonna try hold out for the bundle to drop in price then will pull the trigger.
Dreamwriter
Member
You're generally fine, the game shows other players when someone is watching a cutscene, and everyone gets bonuses if a new player is running the dungeon with them for the first time so they like newbs. There is one specific mission where you will run into issues, because the mission involves more than just a party of 4, and the cutscenes are extremely long, so yeah, that one they won't wait for you. There are plenty of people running it though that you can choose to watch the cutscenes as everyone else runs ahead without affecting the victory condition, or you can just play with everyone else and watch the cutscenes afterwards (the game has a feature that lets you rewatch any cutscene).
KeyBladerXIII
Member
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. 
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order
Member
Does that really only happen once?
Mattakuevan
Member
Great game, played from launch and still playing.
Can't wait for Stormblood.
Can't wait for Stormblood.
I've hit 60 with every DoH and DoL class, but only one combat class: DRG. Last year I decided to try healing for the first time and got CON to 28 and THM to 20 (gotta get those cross-class skills) but then my most recent kid was born and put MMOs on the back burner. Now she's sleeping through the night and I want to finish getting those skills and level up AST to 60. Man, I forgot just how slow leveling is in this game.
Rising_Hei
Member
I loved the first 3 months of ARR and the first patch, after that... being to into it all the time until march 2015, i say that the whole experience is worse for the kind of content they put and for more other reasons
Still an awesome game for anyone to get to play with, its faults start to show up once you're up to date, and when you want to play Heavensward and realice that you must do every campaign quest (including patches) to access the expansion
Still an awesome game for anyone to get to play with, its faults start to show up once you're up to date, and when you want to play Heavensward and realice that you must do every campaign quest (including patches) to access the expansion
Dreamwriter
Member
Yeah, it's basically the last mission in the Realm Reborn main storyline, so it's quite cutscene heavy. They learned their lesson, they didn't do that again after that, they make sure the long cutscenes aren't in the middle of raids. For pretty much the rest of the game, you get a cutscene at the beginning of a dungeon and one before the final boss of the dungeon, but they are very short. The long cutscenes are generally relegated to the unlocking of the dungeon, or finishing it, rather than the actual running of it.
Microsoft still requires the ability to turn off cross play which unless they budge makes it incompatible with FFXIV.
DarknessTear
Banned
Was pretty sure they changed their stance on cross play? Either way Yoshida has tried to work with them on budging there multiple times.
SoundPulse
Banned
Yeah, only once. The rest of the missions in the game have them at the start (where they're forced to wait for you, but they're not too long so most won't complain) and at the end (where you can watch at your own leisure). The thing about that dungeon is that if you watch all of the cutscenes, the dungeon will be cleared by the time you're done, so make an exception.
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.
already helping
You don't really quite notice how many cat girls and popotoes are running around until you play something else. Also a bunch of Au'ra.
potatohead
Member
Bought these on disc but have yet to try it again. Played it briefly during beta on PS4, want to get into it... just need fking time.
adversarial
Member
How does it play with a controller?
Tempted to get in on my Pro even though I played for a month or so when it came out on PC.
Worth it to get into now?
Tempted to get in on my Pro even though I played for a month or so when it came out on PC.
Worth it to get into now?
Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order
Member
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