Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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ZProtoss

Golden Squire
395
15
One really big thing to note as a magic user in this game -Your weapon has the biggest effect on your spells.

To illustrate the above point: I crafted a HQ Ash Wand that had a magic value of 20. It was a 7 point upgrade for a friend of mine who was using a wand with a value of 13. His cure went from healing 70 per cast to 100 per cast. Early on, armor upgrades don't compare at all with weapon upgrades. As soon as you can get a new weapon from a vendor, get it ASAP.
 
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ZProtoss

Golden Squire
395
15
Also as an aside to the above note -

Crafting can make weapons that are 25% stronger than what the vendors/quest rewards give you at equivalent levels if you get an HQ craft. As a quick rundown as to who makes what for weapons (there's some overlap)

Carpentry: Lancer, Archer, Conjurer (primary) Gladiator (secondary)

Blacksmithing: Gladiator, Pugilist, Marauder

Alchemy: Conjurer, Arcanist

Goldsmithing: Thaumaturge
 
tower

tower

Golden Knight of the Realm
375
155
In a few different areas I've felt a definite influence of Aion in the design. Almost like they hired one of their artists or something as there's been a couple fates that reminded me of their outdoor dungeons. Then again it may just be that I've played too many asian MMOs in my life.

CDS/Bronze Lake are fantastic. Southern Thanalan is fine as well. Which of course meant most of the high levels on my server were congregated in POS South Shroud.

If the game isn't finished they shouldn't release it with the level cap at 50. Stick it at 40 if the content is done through 35. Or 45 if they finish it through 40.

Running FATEs is more fun than clicking through boring quests anyway. Probably the closest thing we'll ever get to having camping back (not that I'm saying camping is a good thing, but I'm over quest hubs)
 
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traizen

Trakanon Raider
7
0
Want to check this out before I preorder, I'll throw someone a gift on steam (within reason) if someone has an extra PC code.
 
Xaxius

Xaxius

Lord Nagafen Raider
531
147
Chysamere_sl said:
Some of the zones I've seen are absolutely beautiful. Costa Del Sol and Bronze Lake (which is like a water temple ruins area) were easily the most beautiful areas I've ever seen in an MMO, perhaps in any game ever.
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It really is a work of art. The environments are really impressive and the little details they've sprinkled throughout the world are awesome. I threw up some screenshots I took this weekendhere.

Did anyone else notice that when more players congregate together that the ambient "people chatter" increases? Stuff like that is just plain cool.
 
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Man0warr

Molten Core Raider
2,265
171
tower_sl said:
In a few different areas I've felt a definite influence of Aion in the design. Almost like they hired one of their artists or something as there's been a couple fates that reminded me of their outdoor dungeons. Then again it may just be that I've played too many asian MMOs in my life.
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Probably just hired the same Korean art studio to outsource art assets to, there's a bunch of them that do good work and aren't actually attached to any game studio.
 
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Thraka_sl

shitlord
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0
Like others have said the game hand holds you until level 15 or so at which point you get introduced to your first dungeons - pretty much all group makes up look like they'll consist of 1 healer, 1 tank and 2 dps. Got an Archer up to level 17, did two dungeons Satasha and TDD both of which were amazingly fun - although super easy (expected for a low level dungeon). The Fate mobs (Open area bosses/events - think Warhammer less the loot reward) are pretty fun, it'll be interesting to see if they get killed all that often when there isn't a hundred people in the area to help you.

I'm hoping the game questing dies down next to completely from 15+ outside the main story, class and epic quests. This version of Final Fantasy actually gives me that nostalgic feeling towards the genre that has been missing for so long, I'm glad SE decided to stick with it and keep progressing what they already had built, because it seems to be paying off.

Anyone try playing on both a keyboard and mouse vs a game pad - if so what are your thoughts? I don't see the game pad being better in anyway.
 
Intrinsic

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
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Thraka_sl said:
Like others have said the game hand holds you until level 15 or so at which point you get introduced to your first dungeons - pretty much all group makes up look like they'll consist of 1 healer, 1 tank and 2 dps. Got an Archer up to level 17, did two dungeons Satasha and TDD both of which were amazingly fun - although super easy (expected for a low level dungeon). The Fate mobs (Open area bosses/events - think Warhammer less the loot reward) are pretty fun, it'll be interesting to see if they get killed all that often when there isn't a hundred people in the area to help you.

I'm hoping the game questing dies down next to completely from 15+ outside the main story, class and epic quests. This version of Final Fantasy actually gives me that nostalgic feeling towards the genre that has been missing for so long, I'm glad SE decided to stick with it and keep progressing what they already had built, because it seems to be paying off.
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For the first few dungeons you don't reallyneedthat group make up. I did a couple of runs w/o a Tank, couple of runs with a THM healing with Cure. There is some flexibility with the sub class system, of course it is heavily dependent on what your group is willing to try and if they aren't bads. So your mileage may vary.

After getting 34 last night I spent probably two hours just exploring. Took a shot just like the one Xarius has of the windmills, it really doesn't do it justice. In that area you see the entire cycle of day go through incredibly. The stars fade out, the moon sets, the horizon starts to brighten, and as the sun comes up the light goes through the windmills, shadows lengthen, etc.... I was pretty drunk and it was 3am CST, but it was awesome. But one of those things you have to slow down to enjoy b/c just running from dungeon to dungeon you wouldn't notice the subtlety.

I didn't see a shot of Burning Hall? I think it was called... with the yellow / orange crystals and crisscrossing pathways and waterfalls. It looks nice too. On and the desert, everything looks kind of bland and "deserty" until you hit that place, and it is a legit dune. Only problem was there were no environmental effects there, so it really just looked like running around on a yellow brick sea.
 
Vorph

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
11,019
4,782
Thraka_sl said:
Anyone try playing on both a keyboard and mouse vs a game pad - if so what are your thoughts? I don't see the game pad being better in anyway.
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I've played it on both PS3 and PC, and I lasted about an hour on the PC version before firing up MotionInJoy to use my DS3 with it as well.

Gamepad is superior for this game in just about every way imo. I might choose keyboard if I was tanking, but for a healer there's no contest. It's mostly due to the targeting system which allows you to always have the tank targeted directly while being able to quickly switch to a temporary target to heal another group member or nuke a mob. If they'd add in implied targeting so that casting a nuke on the tank automatically targeted his target it would be absolutely perfect.

For everything else in the game, it's just obvious that the pad is the primary interface they designed around. Things that take multiple mouse clicks and/or drags can be done with a single button press. And since the healing role in dungeons is so easy to play, there's something to be said for being able to just recline in your chair with a wireless controller while grinding them over and over like we did on Friday. I probably wouldn't have touched the keyboard at all, except that I was only in TeamSpeak with one other group member instead of all 3.
 
Pyros

Pyros

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I think gamepad will show its limits once raids start and you have to heal 24people without a decent way to target people. With that said it might be facilitated by UI stuff(priority on people not at full health and being able to set various focused targets for tank healing or whatever) or just by organizing your raid so that your gamepad healers are on tank healing+ random aoe(which don't require targets, they're pbaes) and keep the raid healing for a mouse user for quicker targetting.

As for low lvl I've healed the first 2 dungeons with THM with just CNJ lvl 2 for cure and it worked out fine. It is pretty boring though as you tend to only spam Cure since it's not the most powerful with lower MND and you don't have any other tools. As a CNJ when shit hits the fan on bosses, you can spam a few aoe heals in a row to get everyone back to full, or if you're getting attacked by adds because the tank sucks, it works out too, but as a THM it was fairly brutal. The upside is you get sleep a lot earlier, so you can sleep adds and shit inbetween heals. You also literally can't run out of mana ever due to THM mechanics. Not that you can run out of mana easily with just cure spam anyway. With that said once you get to Ifrit I don't know about healing with a THM, there's a fuckton of aoe damage that is more or less unavoidable(like when he does the large scale ground aoe, the single target ones are easy to dodge) and then you need to heal up everyone with a single target heal that only heals for 20% health of non tank classes, it's like eh.
 
Chysamere

Chysamere

<WoW Guild Officer>
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Pyros_sl said:
I think gamepad will show its limits once raids start and you have to heal 24people without a decent way to target people. With that said it might be facilitated by UI stuff(priority on people not at full health and being able to set various focused targets for tank healing or whatever) or just by organizing your raid so that your gamepad healers are on tank healing+ random aoe(which don't require targets, they're pbaes) and keep the raid healing for a mouse user for quicker targetting.

As for low lvl I've healed the first 2 dungeons with THM with just CNJ lvl 2 for cure and it worked out fine. It is pretty boring though as you tend to only spam Cure since it's not the most powerful with lower MND and you don't have any other tools. As a CNJ when shit hits the fan on bosses, you can spam a few aoe heals in a row to get everyone back to full, or if you're getting attacked by adds because the tank sucks, it works out too, but as a THM it was fairly brutal. The upside is you get sleep a lot earlier, so you can sleep adds and shit inbetween heals. You also literally can't run out of mana ever due to THM mechanics. Not that you can run out of mana easily with just cure spam anyway. With that said once you get to Ifrit I don't know about healing with a THM, there's a fuckton of aoe damage that is more or less unavoidable(like when he does the large scale ground aoe, the single target ones are easy to dodge) and then you need to heal up everyone with a single target heal that only heals for 20% health of non tank classes, it's like eh.
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I did Ifrit with a Marauder, an Archer, a Pug and a Gladiator. Admittedly I was a level 34 scaled down to level 22, but we still did it healerless
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Vorph

Vorph

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
11,019
4,782
Eh, I'm more concerned about running out of slots on the cross bar at 50 than I am about targeting speed. It wasn't hard to fill all 16 slots at level 35 without WHM, and that's with stuff like Protect and Raise moved to a separate bank. Definitely going to play ARC/SCH come phase 4, but I expect it will be just as [over]loaded with hotkeys.
 
Pyros

Pyros

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Chysamere_sl said:
I did Ifrit with a Marauder, an Archer, a Pug and a Gladiator. Admittedly I was a level 34 scaled down to level 22, but we still did it healerless
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Hmm right if everyone heals themselves it'd work out too, but the 2 dungeons I've done as a THM, it seems only one guy in each had CNJ at all, so they'd stay at low health(not even drinking potions which are worth jackshit and you get 40s of during quests) so yeah.

But I've heard of groups doing all current content up to brayfox without a CNJ(had a THM "main" healing then 3 people with their own self heals) so yeah I guess it's quite possible this way but you need everyone to help which in pubs is like... Well you know. Shit Cure is even lvl 2 so it's basically a 3mins task once you have airship, shows how clueless or lazy some people are.

Also other issue is most people will do groups via the Duty Finder I'm sure, which means most of the time it'll wait until you have a CNJ to heal to make the group once that's added. Guess it's nice for guild groups if you don't wanna wait though.
 
tower

tower

Golden Knight of the Realm
375
155
Vorph_sl said:
Eh, I'm more concerned about running out of slots on the cross bar at 50 than I am about targeting speed. It wasn't hard to fill all 16 slots at level 35 without WHM, and that's with stuff like Protect and Raise moved to a separate bank. Definitely going to play ARC/SCH come phase 4, but I expect it will be just as [over]loaded with hotkeys.
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Yea, I'm already on 3 full bars with Marauder at 35. Granted, the chochobo and other class skills are taking up some of that but I can't imagine playing this with a controller.

Ifrit might actually be easier with no healer as long as the group is competent. The stone is a DPS race and my group was GLD, MRD, MRD, ARC so even when the first tank went down we had no problem.
 
Pyros

Pyros

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tower_sl said:
Yea, I'm already on 3 full bars with Marauder at 35. Granted, the chochobo and other class skills are taking up some of that but I can't imagine playing this with a controller.

Ifrit might actually be easier with no healer as long as the group is competent. The stone is a DPS race and my group was GLD, MRD, MRD, ARC so even when the first tank went down we had no problem.
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I guess you'll have to make good use of macros with a gamepad, and probably just drop a lot of shit. Like if you look at basic WHM stuff, it's not that many slots, 3 cures, 1stoneskin, 2aoe heals, esuna, regen, that's basically all your spells. Maybe Aero and Stone 2 if you need to do some dmg and the sleep if for some reason you don't have a THM doing that. The problem is all the fucking cooldowns and shit, you have 3 in WHM, 1 in CNJ(not counting Cleric's Stance which you probably don't want to bother with) then you have THM stuff there's like 2 there and whatever you get from Arcanist.

With all this, you don't have any room for items like clickies or pots, you need another setup for raise(which is combat rez as a CNJ/WHM so you do need it on a bar somewhere) unless you macro some shit. I think you'll probably end up stacking most of the cooldowns on a single macro, I believe you can do that with Wait but not 100% sure.
 
Ao-

Ao-

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I get that they're aiming for the Japanese market... but this 4am Friday to 4am Sunday bullshit needs to end for beta timing. At least let it roll to Monday 4am.
 
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