Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

yamikazo

Trakanon Raider
1,361
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Just finished getting through Ifrit Ex. I guess apparently people get upset if you queue for these things in roulette since we've had a screamer in every group for all my Ex attempts. These really haven't been too bad considering the noob pugs I've been with and I have a lot more fun actually learning the encounters then just getting carried by folks who've done it 100 times. Still got Thornmarch, Ramuh, Shiva, Lev, and Ravana Exs to finish, then the minstrel's ballad stuff for ARR and HW. I do wish more folks would actually just quickly read a guide before hopping into these, though.

Yeahhhhh.

They aren't on any normal roulettes, so you have 4 noobs in a 6 hour queue thinking it's normal and then 4 mentors who hate their life until the timer ends or enough people quit. The issue is you can't carry those 4 noobs that are severely undergeared, don't push their buttons, and generally can't execute mechanics even if you explain what they are.

The average MMO player isn't good enough for this content but the game doesn't warn you it's hard.
 

Koushirou

Log Wizard
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Sorry, meant the duty finder. But basically it took two groups each for Titan and Ifrit since we just had almost the same people queuing up for it each time. Had the same tanks every group, one of the healers through it all and 2 other of the same DPS through it all, so that seemed to help since we got into a nice rhythm.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
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Sorry, meant the duty finder. But basically it took two groups each for Titan and Ifrit since we just had almost the same people queuing up for it each time. Had the same tanks every group, one of the healers through it all and 2 other of the same DPS through it all, so that seemed to help since we got into a nice rhythm.
Yeah DF means you get mentor roulettes people, since that's the only roulette that gets these. So it's that and a bunch of newbs, some of which are wholly unprepared for EX content. Older EX aren't so bad though and can generally be carried, especially the early ones(like ifrit/titan) but some will still suck like Ramuh. People who do mentor roulettes hate these because they'll often have to take the penalty and leave because the group has no chance to clear it this way. Most people who want to do primals do them in PF, unsynced. It's not very interesting for ARR primals since they get stomped, but it gets done quick and fast and people can get the mounts and shit and get out.
 

Pyros

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Ifrit isn't bad as it's just a dps check but Titan EX in pugs gives me nightmares.
Thing is it gets worse depending on the roles and who's the newbs. Like, if your tanks(or at least one of the tank on some of the fights) and healers are mentors, and they've done the fight before, then you can generally clear pretty easily most of the fights other than the ones with mechanics that'll wipe everyone. But if tanks are the new player and don't know what they're supposed to do, a bunch of the fights become increasingly hard, and if the healers are, a lot of the fights become impossible. And then as I just touched on, being a mentor doesn't mean you know how the fight works, just that you've cleared it, which can be cleared unsync. So doing it synced is way different and some mentors for example can't do Ramuh the intended way because they've never done it either.

Overall DF primals are a big mess, they're definitely doable in ARR though, but once you get to HW you probably don't want to bother. Ravana/Bismark can probably be done with semi competent people because of high ilvl sync, but after that the fights require too many mechanics, hell people fucking wipe on them unsynced. I actually have never done a bunch of them synced and wouldn't know how to do them for example.
 

Fyff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,697
5,117
Ravana might be the easiest EX ever. Tied with Garuda maybe? Titan EX has a lot of personal responsibility. Ifrit is just a standard tank swap, dps check and the healers running out with the debuff. I haven't done the current round of EXs. Might bang on them tonight or tomorrow just for lack of things I wanna do. Trying to save up my rested for Gunbreaker. Then again in Heaven on High that rested saves like 20 minutes.
 

Pyros

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Ravana might be the easiest EX ever. Tied with Garuda maybe? Titan EX has a lot of personal responsibility. Ifrit is just a standard tank swap, dps check and the healers running out with the debuff. I haven't done the current round of EXs. Might bang on them tonight or tomorrow just for lack of things I wanna do. Trying to save up my rested for Gunbreaker. Then again in Heaven on High that rested saves like 20 minutes.
Rested isn't used in HoH/PotD, it's only used on kill xp which you don't get any of in these. You'll be at full rested starting 70 if you only do HoH(minus whatever you use to get to 61 unless you do potd, I'm doing a leveling roulette personnally). It's also not used doing primals, but maybe you meant charging it up.
 

Fyff

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,697
5,117
I didn't realize the exp at the end of HoH didn't give a rested bonus. In that case I will probably level guys to 70 or at least 61 for the rest of the week. Going to just save all my tomes I have now and buy level 70 sets for each class so no reason to do much for the next bit.
 

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
9,209
9,309
I dont remember the ARR primals being all that bad. But this was years ago, I was a tank, and we also had a strong semi-guild group with PRX or something. So my view could be skewed slightly. But I dont think I like doing higher difficulty raid bosses in a pug regardless of the MMO, so theres that too.

Girlfriends never played an MMO, much less a game like this at all. She doesnt quite get the concept of some of this stuff, and there is a huge disconnect on where her characters going in real time, versus where her characters arrow is going on the map to this day. Funny as hell to watch, but I dont give her a hard time as much as I want to (You cant walk through Mountains, Christina). She actually likes it, and she's visibly getting better as she levels. When she was killing lady bugs and other beginner mobs, she would run in circles, panning her camera all over the place, hitting the same button over and over and over without ever targeting anything. Now she actively dodges mechanics and kills stuff quickly (She likes MK, so I compared it to her that way with the character standing still, moving out of combos and creating combo's and she picked it up from there pretty well). Still has little to no knowledge on inventory, other classes and that she can / will play them, character armor/weapons, crafting etc. etc. So a lot for her to learn about the basics of the game so far. I'm trying to get her to at least grasp the concept of what the hell is going on in the games story, but she could give 2 fks and just wants to kill more stuff. Think Im approaching it correctly by just letting her steer herself and adjusting her every now and then. Any recommendations to her as a new player to an MMO? Shes playing on the PS4, and I need to get her a Keyboard. Im a good two to three months off from just buying a new PC (at least).

Which kind of leads me down the road... I played mouse and keyboard last time. Never gave controller a chance.. and honestly, I like it a ton better than the keyboard and mouse. Ridiculous how much stuff you can map. Targeting drives me up a wall with it, but thats it. I watched a Video of some dude saying how to adjust it to not be so shitty, but have yet to make the changes he insisted upon. I see where people say that they only play the game with a controller and they are doing max level content. But .. do you guys think its legit? Its one thing to be 70, its another thing entirely to be 70 and killing raid content.
 

Fennin

Golden Knight of the Realm
555
58
Control scheme doesn't really matter at all, this is a MMO completely designed from the ground up with controller players in mind. Just ask yourself these three questions:

1. Can you ride the GCD properly? Don't miss GCD's.
2. Can you weave your OGCD's properly? Don't clip GCD's.
3. Can you properly manipulate your character model to respond to mechanics while doing steps 1 and 2?

If you can do these 3 things properly you are already better than 85%+ of the population and will get purple logs or higher on FFLogs. Many of the top players in the world use controllers for endgame content, and you can't tell any discernable difference really between the two control schemes. The only advantage the mouse has is precision targeting, but this isn't an FPS so that advantage is minimal at best.
 
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Pyros

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Yeah people clear ultimates with pads, it's not a big issue. You do need to organize your shit properly obviously but past that it's more than fine, the GCD is slower on purpose for this kind of stuff, and short of targetting, it's not a big deal, and you still have healers playing with pads in top endgame because ultimately you rarely need to single target random people at a moment's notice if you know what's going on.

I mostly use mine to gather and turn in shit when there's a lot(like leves soon) but I could definitely see myself switching if I ever needed to, especially as non healer where it really doesn't matter much. Hell arguably shit like targetted buffs are better since you can throw them without losing target and without requiring a mouse over, so stuff like dragon sight and what not work better with a pad imo.

As for ARR primals they're definitely not hard, but you have to think that many of the people queuing for it in DF also have no clue about any of the mechanics, they didn't bother watching a video and they're not necessarily good at even the simplest tasks. I mean, if you run pub dungeons, you'll see some people are just fucking awful at the same, and dungeons are way easier than extremes. If you're at least semi competent, EX content is mostly easy(a few are harder than the rest) and is like some entry raiding content for casual but not retards people. But then you have people queuing for DF, potentially undergeared(because for some reason people seem to hate using the free gear they get), not knowing basic mechanics or how to play their classes, and then the fight has a bunch of mechanics you have to do or wipe and you're expected to carry the deadweight. And as I said the deadweight can also totally be other mentors too, since mentors are often garbage players AND don't necessarily know the fight any better.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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I love using the controller on the couch. The MMO perfectionist in me can't use it for anything serious, but grinding POTD/HOH? Sure!
 
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Pyros

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Weren't you my mentor years ago, Pyros Pyros ? ;)
RAF recruiter? Yeah maybe. I got a mount like last week from someone resubbing and it being 90days apparently, maybe you.

Mentors are ingame shit that you can apply for when you do a bunch of garbage requirements and you get a crown next to your name and access to novice network. A lot of shitty players do it just for the crown. You get a mentor roulette for it too that basicaly includes pretty much all content.
 

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Can you turn the f'n sprout / flower thing off completely, though? First time Ive seen it or paid attention to it, one. I was hoping after finishing all those stupid trials that it would go away, but alas... I was wrong. >.>
 

Koushirou

Log Wizard
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I've gotta say, so far the mentors I see in NN are some of the whiniest mother fuckers around, plus the added power tip bonus of I guess being able to kick people from NN chat. The ones on Lev aren't as bad, but goddamn the people in Caqtuar NN chat were fucking obnoxious.

Also, didn't you used to be able to queue for up to 5 duties at once in DF?
 
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Koushirou

Log Wizard
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Can you turn the f'n sprout / flower thing off completely, though? First time Ive seen it or paid attention to it, one. I was hoping after finishing all those stupid trials that it would go away, but alas... I was wrong. >.>

IIRC I think there's a toggle for it in the same area that you set language prefs for DF?
 
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gshurik

Tranny Chaser
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The Novice Network is a mixed bag honestly. At certain times it was quiet until someone needed help and then everyone was super eager to help out, and then at other times it was a glorified chat-room, and had all the drama associated with that.

I honestly do think there should be a chat channel you can join just to chat, because it would stop the NN being full of people who just want a chinwag.
 

Kay

Golden Squire
32
10
I think it's "/returnerstatus off" to get rid of the flower, and "/newplayerstatus off" for the sprout. Returner flower and nn access will go away automatically after 48 hrs played since you got it. I forget what the sprout is, 198 hours springs to mind, and if that expires but you haven't yet finished the last quest of the HW patch content, it'll remain until you do.

Edit: If you qualify for both, you'll go from flower to sprout after 48 hours played.