Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Pretty much. Take leves for example. In the first version, you would get a leve from a npc in major city, go out to a town that had the aetheryte crystal and literally go through 8 steps of UI menus to activate the leve quest through the crystal, then run out to the "Area" marked to do the leve objective and run back to the city to turn in it when finished.

In this version, you talk to a NPC(in major city, or minor towns ), get the leve, run out to the area on map, activate the leve by simply clicking on the activate button, and when its over a pop up comes up asking if you want to port back to the leve NPC to turn in. Same content, but minus all the retarded tediousness.

Has something changed in the last month to make this fun? I'm not hating but i was bored to tears up to L25ish or so. I stopped playing early last month so not sure if they've added/tweaked things to make it suck less(to me).

Dandain_sl said:

it sounds like a lot of folks are enjoying some of the defining aspects of FFXI but refined to 2013 tastes a bit more with better UI etc. Those of us that played FFXI consistently promoted how bad ass the job system is. (or at least one like it)

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I dabbled with FFXI at it's NA launch , but I hit a wall quickly it seemed that made it where I was not going to solo at all. AT ALL. Period.

I might have been missing some mechanic or secret , and like grouping ,but want to be a able to solo a bit also. Turned me off the game at that time.

Well, for $22.50 and all the comments here, its hard to pass up. I'll give it a whirl!

Foundhttp://eorzeareborn.com/for general info, andhttp://mirai.guildwork.com/forum/thr...inkbook?page=1linked a couple pages back for more specific.

Anything else recommended before I dive in? I hadn't read a single thing about the game before a couple of hours ago. I'm not understanding a lot of it now, but I'm sure it will make sense in the game. But still, any tips anyone wants to share (Ie, best starting zone, don't do x thing until your second char, shit like that)?

Edit - Ohh also tradeskill recommendations? I plan on going Summoner I imagine, I have a soft spot for pet classes. I enjoy healing as well, so caster stuff will be the focus.

Crone_sl said:

Just bought it on GMG with the 25% off code. For that cheap? Why not! Try it out for the free month, and see what happens.

Going back to what Kreugen said. I think he's right. People don't want brand new. They do like the familiar. As said, I think what is appealing is a lot of those quality of life things that are already in game, that makes the first impressions of the game focused on the game, and not people saying how tedious this or that was. It's almost as they realized that the people playing the game would be MMO vets at this point in the genre, and so the bag space thing, traveling, etc are things they wanted to make sure were convenient. To a brand new person to MMO's it may seem like normal running out of bag space, but to a vet, it's just tedious and annoying.

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Although different in some ways, the game isn't that much different in core mechanics than say Rift, but I don't see people flocking to that. I still think the IP has some draw to it. It's easier to get invested in this world than something you've never heard of before. Listening to the familiar music also helps. Put that with mechanics that simplify a lot of things and you've got a pretty decent game. Is it a long term thing? Hell no, my backlog on Steam insures I will never commit to an MMO for more than a few months. But damn it's only 22 bucks. There are shittier games out there for that price that people buy.

To be the devil's advocate: You shouldn't be looking at games and going "well it's only 22.50, that's ok!" or anything even sort of close. That is being a sheep and a terrible consumer that promotes terribad company policies and actions. Not picking on anyone specifically, but that really is a bad line of reasoning.

THAT SAID! Had boatloads of fun in P3 and now in P4, and preordered to load up whenever they bring servers back up. If you had the misfortune of grouping with me as a Marauder and a drunk tank, Sorry! But goddamn, this game is fun. The world clicks where others have not. Could be the FF vibe; could be the slower combat and more defined world. Could even be, I dare say, the well crafted content and overall thematic presentation. Or it could simply be that everything else is mediocre on all of the above concepts. Whatever the source, this game grabs me, and I am OK with giving square-enix money based upon that.

Thraka_sl said:

Marauder VS Gladiator tanking - Its been discussed already, but actually leveling both to 20 I found the Gladiator to be more enjoyable (which I wasn't expecting).

If anyone cares - I found that:

Marauders require less skill to maintain AE agro, and are more TP intensive then Gladiators. I dislike that their stun is on a heavy cool-down. Their single target dps and agro is on par or lesser than that of a Gladiator.

Gladiators take less damage and have a quick refresh stun. Their AE agro ability (At least at lower levels, I don't know if it changes later) is called "Flash" which requires MP rather then TP and does 0 damage. Gladiators require a little more micromanaging in terms of meter control when building AE agro. Their TP drains a lot slower if you don't use your their shield bash every 3~ seconds. Maintaining agro on all mobs requires more awareness when grouping with retards.

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I did marauder and glad to 20, tanking the three starter dungeons a fair bit on both. Survivability seemed pretty similar for the two of them, marauder skills were significantly more interesting, cycling the aoe cone, 2 hit chain that buffs damage, dot etc. Gladiator on boss mobs on the other hand was 1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,zzzz.

Flash I found to be excellent for multi-target aggro, it held threat very well, and was easier to use overall. You can hit stuff behind you, the range is pretty good, and you can use it to aggro sleeping mobs without waking them up. Fortunately you can cross class it to marauder anyway.

The biggest difference other than 'fun' value though was damage - gladiator is very weak, marauder was, at worst, equal to the best dps class in my groups. At best, it was higher than both arcanists and their pets combined, although this is probably because they were retards using tank pets. Still, in 4 mans you end up with 3 dps instead of 2.25, which makes runs go a lot faster.

Random thought on tank pets - they seem outrageously overpowered up to 20 - their single target aggro generation is about equal to marauder, if you fall behind ( say to pick up some adds ) you will never catch up, but that seems ok because they had no trouble tanking boss mobs anyway.

I look at the cheaper box prices as Square not trying to double dip and not trying to grift anyone with the revamp. God knows if it was EA Bioware they'd be charging $150 for the collector's edition again. They a) actually want to make a game that people want to play and b) produce a game that brings back some of the glory to the Final Fantasy franchise.

Let's not forget, this game has a producer who actually has a damn brain and as an avid MMO player, has gone through the same shit the rest of us has in the last 5 years with the MMO scene. Every post/letter he has written has me nodding in agreement - that gives me hope for the future of the game.

The whole sacking the old FFXIV team and hiring Yoshi-P to totally rebuild the game was a genius move.

I will echo what a lot of people have been saying; it scratches an itch that has been gone for a while in the mmo relm for me. The slower pace of combat is great- with a PUG as my main I like the dancing around the mob and it gives you time to fire off combos. Also, there is no "death penalty" per-say, but the run back during a boss fate encounter can add up and if you are bound further away as a home point you can miss it outright. We did the fate in eastern shroud that was mentioned for the baby bun minion (level 20 fate) and dead bodies littered the battlefield.

You had people asking in zone for rezzes because of the cost and distance to run back, which I thought was an amazing way to slowly build community. People we freely helping others meld materia for them in cities, and while I was leatherworking last night, people were chatting while just sitting there crafting away together. It's just the small things that add up. I am one of those individuals who would primarily only do an instance or queue up with friends or guild members. But in the last beta phase, people were explaining how mechanics worked and chatting in party chat.

For me it's a win. I really wasn't feeling a final fantasy mmo because I played XI and really had a hard time getting into things there. Who knows how it will feel three-four months out. All I know is right now it's fun and that's all that matters to me these days gaming.

Rezz_sl said:

To be the devil's advocate: You shouldn't be looking at games and going "well it's only 22.50, that's ok!" or anything even sort of close. That is being a sheep and a terrible consumer that promotes terribad company policies and actions. Not picking on anyone specifically, but that really is a bad line of reasoning.

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What I meant was, I had pretty much planned on not buying another MMO until I could see what people were saying a couple months after release, but with the combination of positive initial feedback AND a very low price point, I'm giving it a shot. It's pretty rare I pay full price for games anymore, as all too often I could pick them up at 50% less after just a couple of months, sometimes even less.

Man0warr_sl said:

Let's not forget, this game has a producer who actually has a damn brain and as an avid MMO player, has gone through the same shit the rest of us has in the last 5 years with the MMO scene. Every post/letter he has written has me nodding in agreement - that gives me hope for the future of the game.

The whole sacking the old FFXIV team and hiring Yoshi-P to totally rebuild the game was a genius move.

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Yoshida was a massive EQ fan, you can actually kind of see it with the art direction and the color palette. Can't wait for early access.

The truth is most people want a game that has a "feel" like their game of choice did (and WHEN it did, most importantly). WoW now isn't at all the game it was through the BC expansion. They've made even more changes since then. People want comfortable, but with enough new features (or polished versions of older ones) to make a game more than the sum of its parts. So far FFXIV looks the part...at least for a month or two. Who knows if it'll have staying power. I think the look and feel of the game add a lot to it, as does how fucking well it runs, even on non top machines. Can't be said enough how much of a difference that makes. It also feels like a FF game which adds something for a lot of us. There are many nods to previous games with music, naming styles, and just overall look of certain npcs.

I can't wait to get to play this again.

Speaking of... is there a /played command?

I like the way the game rewards grouping. I played THM to 20 using the quests, but then GLD and CNJ to 20, basically grinding through XP. In a group chaining even and + con mobs and FATEs, your XP is insane. You can literally grind through to 15 in a couple of hours in a group, which is significantly faster than grinding solo. After that, you can just chain dungeons and get a level every run and any loot you get on greed will be useful for another job. I've got three aetherial weapons in my armory waiting for my ARC/MRD/PUG.

Malakriss_sl said:

Speaking of... is there a /played command?

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Just from reading the official lists, it doesn't look like it.

so we headstart is Friday afternoon?

Boloboy_sl said:

so we headstart is Friday afternoon?

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Believe its 2am Saturday? Not sure if that's official or what.