Anyone here play Final Fantasy XIV?

[PhoenixPhyre]

At times the pretty can get overwhelming, at least for spell effects. I leave my party as partial effects so i can see what the enemies are trying to do too me. And lots of those, especially the bosses, are amazing as well. The new raid that came out has some serious effects, including throwbacks to old FF games.

But yes, it's very pretty. Even the gear is good: I heard someone say that the real endgame is glamour (what wow calls transmog). And that's quite true.

[LaZodiac]

I have started a character in this game. black mage. free trial.

and oh boy just from the first three levels of thaumaturge/black mage I can already tell its better than WoW and see no reason to go back ever. its not anything specific, its just that I can feel the effort put into all this. the character creation system is actually customizable, I don't know what the patron god choice is supposed to do, but I guess its an identity thing with no benefits or downsides, the starting area of Ul'dah for my Mi'quote is perfect. desert? raiding bandits? corrupt guards? a city of greed and violence? knives in the shadows? its as if they knew what exactly what I wanted!

and the cinematics....the looks, the everything....its all awesome. it certainly looks prettier than Wow. combat seems standard MMO stuff, but the spells look better and make sense for FF.

its worth the download at the very least and I'll at some point play more.

Glad you're liking it! What server/world, we can play together maybe.

The best part of Ul'Dah is when you realize it's the Lallafel capital, because it helps solidify WHY basically every Lallafel NPC you meet is a terrible **** head. That's just how they are, culturally, on the whole. Awful potato children.

[Lord Raziere]

Glad you're liking it! What server/world, we can play together maybe.

The best part of Ul'Dah is when you realize it's the Lallafel capital, because it helps solidify WHY basically every Lallafel NPC you meet is a terrible **** head. That's just how they are, culturally, on the whole. Awful potato children.

...frack uh if I remember correctly....I'm certain the world was Primal.....but I don't remember the server....just that it was marked a "legacy" server....so its either Excalibur or Hyperion.

[Resileaf]

...frack uh if I remember correctly....I'm certain the world was Primal.....but I don't remember the server....just that it was marked a "legacy" server....so its either Excalibur or Hyperion.

Can't be Excalibur, that damn server is always closed because it's too full. XD I've been trying to get in forever.

[Grif]

I have started a character in this game. black mage. free trial.

and oh boy just from the first three levels of thaumaturge/black mage I can already tell its better than WoW and see no reason to go back ever. its not anything specific, its just that I can feel the effort put into all this. the character creation system is actually customizable, I don't know what the patron god choice is supposed to do, but I guess its an identity thing with no benefits or downsides, the starting area of Ul'dah for my Mi'quote is perfect. desert? raiding bandits? corrupt guards? a city of greed and violence? knives in the shadows? its as if they knew what exactly what I wanted!

and the cinematics....the looks, the everything....its all awesome. it certainly looks prettier than Wow. combat seems standard MMO stuff, but the spells look better and make sense for FF.

its worth the download at the very least and I'll at some point play more.

To wit, the patron god thing used to confer very minor benefits (+ resistance). I gathered it was a relic from 1.0. They scrapped it soon afterwards, along with all the +resist gear and materia because functionally they were useless, outside very specific joke situations where you go into Titan or Garuda with a ****ton of the appropriate elemental resist to laugh at all the "IMMUNE" you get.

[LaZodiac]

You know that's a question. Since resistances seem as though they've just been outright removed, does the aspected damage matter at all? Does a fire spear implicitly do more or less damage to something water?

[Hunter Noventa]

You know that's a question. Since resistances seem as though they've just been outright removed, does the aspected damage matter at all? Does a fire spear implicitly do more or less damage to something water?

Elemental damage doesn't really do anything different anymore. There are a very few raid fights where you get something like, 'stand the pool of water to raise your fire resistance versus big explodey fire spell' but otherwise it's ignored.

[lesser_minion]

You know that's a question. Since resistances seem as though they've just been outright removed, does the aspected damage matter at all? Does a fire spear implicitly do more or less damage to something water?

The element of a given spell determines what sort of spell it is and how it interacts with your job mechanics. e.g., black mages use fire spells to deal the bulk of their damage, ice spells to replenish their MP, and lightning spells to deal damage over time. However, all of your spells use the same element to calculate damage.

That means that if an enemy has a buff that reflects ice damage, it will affect blizzard 3 and freeze in exactly the same way it affects fire 4 and flare, and you'll need to do a mechanic to change your damage type, rather than just trying to cast different spells.

The most common "damage types" mechanic you'll see is a pair of targets, one of which reflects or negates all incoming 'ranged' damage, and one of which reflects or negates all incoming 'magical' damage, with tanks and melee DPS being completely exempt from both.

[LaZodiac]

I forget which of you told me to do the Hildebrand stuff.

Thank you.

[Hunter Noventa]

I forget which of you told me to do the Hildebrand stuff.

Thank you.

/hildy

You are very welcome.

[LaZodiac]

*salutes*

Greg was a really good trial.

[Yuki Akuma]

Hildy shows after after the x.0 MSQ of every expansion so far, too.

Still waiting for him to show up in Shadowbringers, but 5.1 isn't out yet so.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Hildy shows after after the x.0 MSQ of every expansion so far, too.

Still waiting for him to show up in Shadowbringers, but 5.1 isn't out yet so.

Yeah, he's usually in a .x patch. Of course, with the ending to the SB line, him showing up is a guarantee.

[LaZodiac]

Yeah, he's usually in a .x patch. Of course, with the ending to the SB line, him showing up is a guarantee.

God I can't wait to get to that.

Also hey I'm at the third "episode" of Gentleman of Light and, hm. How do I put it.

This is the greatest thing I've ever experienced.

[Brookshw]

I know nothing about this game yet but am curious. Could anyone please confirm (1) if it has a monthly subscription fee, (2) if it has a strong story element, (3) how "grindy" it is, (4) is pvp or griefing a thing, and (5) how much content requires grouping?

[Yuki Akuma]

Yes, there is a monthly subscription. It's slightly cheaper if you only have one character per server.

The story is the primary reason people play it. It has a very strong story.

It used to be pretty grindy but nowadays it's easy enough to reach max level just doing quests. Leveling up EVERY class will require some grinding though.

PvP is only a thing in specific PvP areas. All NPCs are immortal and untargetable and the only griefing possible is being intentionally bad in a dungeon or spamming annoying abilities in towns, and you can just turn off non-party effects to curtail that.

You'll be required to be in a group at many points during the main story quest, but there's a random party finder and mechanics in place to incentivise players to go back and redo old content so it's not an issue mostly. DPS roles have longer queues than Tank and Healer roles but nothing absurd usually.

[Brookshw]

Well that's disappointing, I'm kind of in the mood to play an FF game but sounds like that's not the one. Thank you for the feedback.

[Rynjin]

I know nothing about this game yet but am curious. Could anyone please confirm (1) if it has a monthly subscription fee, (2) if it has a strong story element, (3) how "grindy" it is, (4) is pvp or griefing a thing, and (5) how much content requires grouping?

1.) Yes.

2.) YMMV. It's nothing special; it's every single Final Fantasy cliche rolled into a single game and stretched over 10 times the normal timespan. A lot of people like that though.

3.) It's not grindy in the traditional sense but it's a tiring game to get into ATM, at least from my perspective. There's a lot of content to grind through, and most of the content before the first expansion is incredibly boring, particularly the 200 or so mandatory nothing quests between the end of the base game and start of Heavensward.

4.) Not really.

5.) All the dungeons and bosses. The party finder is really good though, and the community is often nice; I only had one bad experience with a group, on my first run through of the final story dungeon of the base game. Plus it's the only content that's actually engaging besides a few of the more entertaining sidequests...which you won't want to touch since it slows your leveling to a crawl. Sidequest and monster XP is ludicrously low, so you're funneled into shotgunning main quest stuff, and if you do manage to gain a few levels from sidequests it won't matter since you'll just get level synced constantly anyway.

[GhoulKaven]

I've tried it, but it didn't work for me

[LaZodiac]

Incidentally I'm at Heavensward now.

The game has definitely ramped up, I'll say that much.

[Resileaf]

I'm slowly getting all my jobs to level 50 while I'm farming Beastmen daily quests for reputation. Done all the combat type reputations, I'm continuing on with the Ixal.

[Hunter Noventa]

Incidentally I'm at Heavensward now.

The game has definitely ramped up, I'll say that much.

You think Heavensward is ramping up, just wait til Shadowbringers. Hoo boy.

I'm in the pre-patch lull, waiting for the new 24-man raid, since my main class (MCH now, instead of MNK) is fully decked out, and I'm slowly leveling other classes. New job and longer commute leaves me with a lot less time to play.

[Grif]

You think Heavensward is ramping up, just wait til Shadowbringers. Hoo boy.

I'm in the pre-patch lull, waiting for the new 24-man raid, since my main class (MCH now, instead of MNK) is fully decked out, and I'm slowly leveling other classes. New job and longer commute leaves me with a lot less time to play.

Same here, but I still have the extreme trials and savage raids to look forward to since my FC doesn't do these often, and I am loathe to subject myself to the whims of PF.

[LaZodiac]

You think Heavensward is ramping up, just wait til Shadowbringers. Hoo boy.

I'm in the pre-patch lull, waiting for the new 24-man raid, since my main class (MCH now, instead of MNK) is fully decked out, and I'm slowly leveling other classes. New job and longer commute leaves me with a lot less time to play.

God I still need to do the Coil and Crystal Palace raids. I'm so lazy and have no time. I also need to scrounge up people for Savage Titan and, theoretically, Savage Moggle Mog.

I mean extreme not savage but am to tired to fix my typo sorry.

[Grif]

God I still need to do the Coil and Crystal Palace raids. I'm so lazy and have no time. I also need to scrounge up people for Savage Titan and, theoretically, Savage Moggle Mog.

I mean extreme not savage but am to tired to fix my typo sorry.

Crystal Tower raids can be done on Duty Finder. Extreme Primals (Titan, Levi, Ifrit, Shiva, etc) are strictly optional, and people usually only run them unsynced for the mounts.

Coils is an odd one out. It's what the game now terms as "Savage" content, so it isn't on the raid roulette, so you actually need to find a group to do them synced. You can probably solo/duo them at level 70+ though.

[LaZodiac]

Crystal Tower raids can be done on Duty Finder. Extreme Primals (Titan, Levi, Ifrit, Shiva, etc) are strictly optional, and people usually only run them unsynced for the mounts.

Coils is an odd one out. It's what the game now terms as "Savage" content, so it isn't on the raid roulette, so you actually need to find a group to do them synced. You can probably solo/duo them at level 70+ though.

You lost me once you said unsynced. I'm not very well versed in the terminology, so could you explain it to me like I'm ten?

Also I'm a dragoon I doubt I can solo an entire raid?

[Hunter Noventa]

You lost me once you said unsynced. I'm not very well versed in the terminology, so could you explain it to me like I'm ten?

Also I'm a dragoon I doubt I can solo an entire raid?

Unsynced means you go in at your actual current level and gear, not what the content was designed for. So you could go do Coils as a level 60 Dragoon or whatever.

A chunk of them you can solo, I know i was doing a chunk of them solo for Wondrous Tales (A mechanic you pick up at the end of HW to encourage you to revisit old content), but I was a level 70 monk then.

But yeah, if you advertise in PF that you want to do unsynced first time Coils, you'll probably get enough bites. There's a couple fights that require more than raw power to get through though, so you might want to watch a video that'll explain the mechanics.

But Crystal Tower is stupidly easy, just wait in the party finder and you'll get enough people doing Alliance Raid Roulette soon enough to get through those. Some of the fights have some mechanics, but if you've been handling things all right up til now, you won't kill the whole party on accident.

But you definitely should do them, the plot might be a side plot, but its still good stuff. Both CT and Coils. Hell, Coils has an exclusive FMV buried in it to see.

[Grif]

You lost me once you said unsynced. I'm not very well versed in the terminology, so could you explain it to me like I'm ten?

Also I'm a dragoon I doubt I can solo an entire raid?

Ah, right. I forget this is probably a in-game terminology.

Synced simply means that you're level-synced to the content level when you run the duty. You probably seen that message/warning where your level will be synced to whatever instance that your quest took place in. Eg. if you're at level 30, but you're doing a level 15 quest, you'd be synced down to level 15 for that quest instance (FFXIV calls these solo duties). Same principle applies to instanced contents like raids and dungeons. If your level is higher than the content level, you're given an option to sync down to the content level, or to run it at your current level (unsynced).

This has a few important implications, of course. Given the massive stat inflation from level 50 to level 70/80, one could conceivably solo/duo any of the old ARR/HW content without needing to find a group. A DRG has like 4.5k HP at level 50. The same DRG will typically have 80k HP at level 80. Obviously, this trivialises any content which does not have instant death mechanics.

[LaZodiac]

Thanks for the advice. Maybe I'll try to get it done this weekend. Does doing it unsynced stop you from getting like, rewards and stuff? I'm around level 61 and have the armour from doing Heavensward's Dragoon job quests so I'm pretty much good for items except weapon, and I kinda want to get all the cool mounts since they're like, cool.

[Hunter Noventa]

Thanks for the advice. Maybe I'll try to get it done this weekend. Does doing it unsynced stop you from getting like, rewards and stuff? I'm around level 61 and have the armour from doing Heavensward's Dragoon job quests so I'm pretty much good for items except weapon, and I kinda want to get all the cool mounts since they're like, cool.

You won't get experience or item drops from enemies, but nothing in those actually drop anything. You still get anything from chests, which is where you'd find things like the Extreme Primal Mounts.

You'll probably want to farm enough Poetics to get the Augmented Shire Armor and Weapon from Idyllshire, they'll last you til 64 or so in SB, and serve you well in attempting Coils.

You can't easily do CT unsynced, but at the same time, it's so easy you don't need to.