5 Criminal Misconceptions I Had About FFXIV
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- čas přidán 4. 08. 2024
- So I have enjoyed playing ffxiv for some time now and it is only recently that I have realized that I had the game all wrong, I was caught in others opinions that I didn't realize that I could potentially be looking at the game incorrectly.
0:00 Realizing My Faults
0:30 Reading Into It
2:53 Combating Boredom
4:56 Trial And Error
7:31 Building Up
10:00 My Worst Mistake
12:28 What I Need To Tell You
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![[FFXIV] Mentor Illness](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tzS9Nh7ncGg/mqdefault.jpg)
My biggest gripe of some of the people recommending this game is the whole "ARR is slow, but it gets better if you stick with it". This implies in the mind of many that ARR is crap and you have to suffer through to get to the good bits. But time and time again I have seen new people (including when I first started) actually enjoy ARR as a good foundation of what is to come; if ARR is this good, how good is the rest that everyone goes crazy over. This mind set needs to change. It does not mean that ARR is perfect, but it is far from crap that is implied.
Same thing with Stormblood, imo. It's biggest crime is being between Heavensward and Shadowbringers. Get out of the Ruby Sea and StB is fine and the patch content is straight fire.
I can agree with that, it really receives a lot of negative feedback despite actually being pretty good! You don't have to suffer, err I should say "choose" to suffer. You can choose to enjoy it!
Honestly I think it starting of slow is just part for the course for the genre. The beginning of a story needs to set the foundation for the things that happens later at that often tends to make the early parts not as exciting as the rest of the story.
I think people misunderstand slow as the story but its more of the combat when you only have 5 to 10 skill and most of them are on gcd
They say it mainly due to being already familiar with a lot of jrpg, imo. I dont "know" if ARR is bad, but Im already familiar with most FF and jrpg tropes that ARR does so I can antecipate the plot, its such a "safe move" that it feels somewhat bland. It doesnt necessarily surprise me, so it might not engage that much. But not everything is plot, ARR I was engaged more on exploration, the atmosphere, theme, etc. And sometimes progressing the msq to continue my exploration felt like a chore ngl, but that wasnt happening on HW anymore, despite even disliking its theme myself.
I also like that Yoshi P has even said it's okay to let your membership lapse and come back when you're ready to play again. You don't hear that very often
That's why I would be willing to spend money on this game!
I play one month at a time. Either when there's a seasonal event or a new patch. And sometimes I barely play at all during that month. It's a good game, it has earned my time and some of my money.
Even joking they pushed back DawnTrail so people can play Elden Ring. lol
@@LivvieLynn That's legitimately a valid reason. Competing unnecessarily is to no one's advantage.
14 Team is focused more on Respecting players time. you don't have to Invest a ton of time to play Catch up if you decide to take a few months or years off(other then having to do the story maybe).
The free trial is absolutely insane. I put in 1000 hours into the trial, levelling every job, doing every crafting job which was an adventure in itself, every raid and side quest. If you can deal with the limitations, it's a great time, the duty finder acts as your party finder and the novice network as your guild.
Funny you say the novice Network is your Guild. Most people paying for a sub get kicked from it, and some don't really want to be removed. But its supposed to have a function and that's understandable. But they should create another tier to the network. Or chat channels based upon subject matters listed in the party finder. Like fates, raids, and such. With a new tier of moderators, tied to the achievement menu. Party finder can be rough as there isn't any camaraderie, like you build within the novice network. People always looking for player created link pearls based upon a specific goal.
I can respect that, but at the same time: how did you put 1,000 hours into a game and not think it was worth paying for just on principle alone, lol.
@@kedolan4992Because some people can't *afford* the extra $20/month or at least would have to be giving up something else.
@@kedolan4992 my dad plays free to play games. And complains about locked features and shop items. I constantly have to ask him, how do you think the company makes money? You play the game every day for hours and you intend not to give them a dime?
@@kedolan4992I know I'm not OP but I was in a similar boat, put 1200 hours on the free trial before subbing. I only subbed after I had everything that I wanted to do, done, on the free trial + when that happened there was a 50% discount so it was perfect timing
I think the misconception about ARR comes from back before 5.3 when the devs trimmed out a lot of the filler quests from the MSQ and also introduced flying to ARR zones.
I can only speak for myself, but when I played in 5.1 I nearly dropped the game during ARR, I really wasn't having a good time. But I've played through the entire MSQ on a couple of alts during EW, and ARR isn't that bad anymore.
Nearly the same experience for me as well, minus the nearly quitting part. I started my original character during the 5.3 patch and made it through ARR and about halfway through HW. I remember liking the overall story of ARR but even with the initial 5.3 trimming of the filler quests, there was still a LOT of filler and not having flight at all, and no duty support when it's 2am and you just want to finish a dungeon and not wait in the duty queue for half an hour for the rest of the night owls to maybe eventually queue in... it was rough going. However, I stopped playing because my IRL friend that I started playing with had also stopped, and I didn't want to advance the story too much past where they were.
I didn't start playing again until about 2 years later, with the 6.1 patch and a couple other IRL friends started playing, and still playing today. I ended up creating a new character that was intended to just catch me up to where my original character was, like a refresher on the story (I know there's NG+ but just felt like making an alt based on my old FFXI character to do it, plus any of the HW stuff wasn't available in NG+ yet because I hadn't progressed far enough for that). There are still some filler quests in ARR but it has been massively improved even from the 5.3 trimming. So much so, that I've even made 2 other alts for themed characters, and gotten them both through the base ARR 2.0 rather quickly. Even have another alt in mind when the female Hrothgars come online, and I'll take them through ARR with no problem.
I played for the first time right during the runup to EW, after 5.3, and I had a HARD time getting through ARR. It did sort of vary in chunks - I enjoyed the Gridania intro storyline, then got pretty bored for Ifrit and Titan, and then sort of kept pingponging as to whether I was enjoying myself or not from Garuda onwards. My impression of the whole thing was pretty negative though. I did get through the ARR MSQ, but I couldn't force myself through the post-ARR patch content. It starts off strong introducing the Domans and with all this politicking with Teledji Adeledji... and then it feels like it falls into a holding pattern where nothing happens at all for eight thousand years, you're just sort of wasting time faffing around with the Crystal Braves.
I finally quit shortly after the Shiva trial and didn't return to the game for about 6 months, after which I got to The Parting Glass, which is fantastic and thoroughly hooked me, and then I was completely on board from Heavensward onwards.
For the record, I came into FFXIV completely on my own and almost completely blind. I didn't know that ARR was meant to be the slow part, nor that it was meant to get good at Heavensward. I only started getting into the community when I fell in love with the game during Heavensward, and learned that not really being into ARR's story is pretty usual. I just authentically had the experience that a lot of people warn newcomers about. I know a lot of people say that the community so consistently warning people that ARR is meant to be the bad bit might be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but in my case it wasn't - I didn't know this is how I'm "meant" to feel about it, but it was legitimately how I felt.
ARR patch content was a grind when new. Plus in the mid point of level 20~30 there were way too many fetch, and note passing quests.
Nope, played during the Heavensward days and still enjoyed almost every minute of ARR.
I honestly think the problem arise with people who DO rush the MSQ, who DO try to 'get to the good part', that people keep telling them about.
ARR is a mediocre experience at best and a boring grind at worst (most in post ARR). But it is important to learn the world of 14, just a shame its done in an average way, not a compelling opening to a game people will be putting hundreds of hours in
People bash ARR a lot, but I think the slow pacing is due to the fact that you're a budding adventurer making a name for yourself. The entire base game sees you travelling across the land, making connections, doing odd jobs and just overall making the world a better place little by little...building an identity like that takes time. Even with something like Dungeons and Dragons, if your player character has a backstory where they're already a master of all magicks, an all-powerful overlord with abilities that would raze the entire city to the ground with a gesture of your legendary staff of darkblivion...wtf are you doing in the Adventurer Guild as a level 1 nobody? You're here to shape your story and give the people a reason to believe in you as their "hope". Nice vid :)
People forget it’s a 50 level “expansion,” though 2.0 is more than an expansion. There are 3 main 2-tier city-states with at release 8 classes and 9 jobs, 8 crafting classes, 3 gathering classes, and 4-5 zones per city-state plus a neutral zone.
Each xpack is 10 levels with 2-3 new jobs, 1 city-state typically with 1 tier (Ishgard is the outlier), 1 regional hub, and 6 total zones. Yet there is more story impact in the expansions because they have half the time to world build.
That said, ARR does show its age more than the others.
@@BlakeAustin2011 well said and excellent points. :)
Sort of but what people never consider is that ARR was the result of a reboot of a game that was so bad that it had to be shut down. They really didn't have much idea what they were doing at the time and they just had to try and make something that was really just kind of good enough, it'll do to manage to save the game whilst also having to somehow make it tie-in to the original. HW was the first time they could really just freely do whatever they wanted and build upon their decent first attempt.
People forget ARR is what redeemed 1.0. The story of 1.0's destruction into a truly awesome game came in the form of ARR and people don't give it enough credit. Also, back in 2.0, ARR is all we had, we thoroughly enjoyed it and it's quite hard to top the Coils of Bahamut storyline. Still my favorite raid story to date.
Glad you are enjoying it and keep enjoying it at your own pace!
The reason I never played WoW (besides its graphics which are still horrible looking to me) is that your character is locked into one class and that’s it. I first started on FFXI, so the job system was the same on there as is FFXIV; however FFXI has WAY more job customization because you can sub a second job to your main job, like Warrior/Monk (sub jobs were half the level of your main job) and you could get stats, traits, and actions from that sub job. You could even be a Warrior/Ninja and dual wield 2 hand axes (even have two different types of axes!) and even use Ninja’s Ninjutsu spells for creating shadows so you could dodge attacks.
I WILL tell you this! Yoshi-P just recently stated that in 8.0 of FFXIV (after Dawntrail), he wants to make jobs more specialized and have their own identity. He stated that Dawntrail is setting that up right now with a lot of new attacks and abilities once you are Lv100.
up until Stormbringer 14 had that system too, you can see a piece of it left in gathering jobs, but thankfully it was removed. Because unlike in 11 where you could play with a sub-optimal build and people would still play with you here on 14 many of the choices became compulsory for group content.
@@gothicshark you mean Stormblood? In 1.0 is when we had broken class builds. You could party as a group of Black Mages to take down Garuda.
@@adamslosslessmusiccollection Meme runs still exist. It's always fun seeing them in Party Finder.
Well they never really removed the 1.0 job system from the game. The code is still in there somewhere. Blue mage uses it.
ARR is and always has been good on the whole. However! There were some quests - possibly still are - that might just break a new player from frustration. Not everyone takes a "whoops wrong X, effort wasted, go here instead" joke quest step with good grace, and ARR does it to you *twice*. And then there's the Titan quest chain, which is still obnoxiously long, even if it is narratively important. These sore point quests literally killed my attempts to get into the game twice on two separate attempts (TP being a thing didn't help) and it's a miracle I gave it a third try and it stuck.
If you're liking the "slow boring stuff" then hang on tight. The ride just gets better.
Well yall ain't getting rid of me anytime soon!
@@CaffeinatedDad don't threaten us with a good time. 😅
This. ARR being the 'weakest' part of the story (debatable) is like being the crust end of a perfect loaf of bread: it's still wonderful and means there's more wonderful things to come!
ARR is the first incline of a rollercoaster, building anticipation and preparing for the wild ride beyond.
@@thyrussendria8198 This is probably the best description I've seen of ARR so far. It's basically the build-up for the rest of the game. I like to tell people to simply view it as a very long prologue, since it's mostly worldbuilding and set-up for what comes after.
The advice I would give any new player is don't listen to other people when it comes to "the best expansion" it's something you honestly have to judge for yourself. In my experience I really liked ARR and I felt like Heavensward was overhyped, Not bad it's a good expansion just didn't feel THAT much better than ARR to me.
Well I just got into ishgard last night. The time for me to see something different is here!
@@CaffeinatedDadrandom side note- I don't know if you're considering playing Dark Knight, but in my opinion, right when you get to Ishgard is the perfect time to pick it up and level it/do the 30-50 quests. they're very much written as happening right at that time.
@@CaffeinatedDad what the other person said and without giving any spoilers dark knight is the main job of shadowbringers, so you might want to start leveling it early if you plan to do the "canon" job for every expansion since it starts at lv30. maybe monk as well since monk (or samurai? they both are in the trailer so it's up in the air i think) is the canon for stormblood which starts at lv60. samurai starting at lv50 would be faster to level but if you go monk you have the grind from lv1 all over again
yeah and get some aggressive mods to silence a lot chat foreshadowing. Not allowing a streamer to form their own impressions of the game and characters is one of the communities biggest collective crimes.
@@katmeerkats 100% i will usually say I enjoyed a part after they are finished with it but I generally don't try to talk about something coming up. If it does happen it's cause I sometimes get mixed up on where things happen in the story.
I'm always gonna respect someone who's willing to acknowledge when they were wrong.
Honestly the great thing about this game is that you don't need to have played the previous games to understand what's going on. Certainly there are some questlines where you get extra enjoyment from recognising the remixed and updated themes, or go 'hey cool I see what you did there!' at seeing a familiar villain, but storywise there's no issue. Recently I went :O and got all hyped up for a 6.5 boss because of nostalgia for FFIV, but that didn't mean I enjoyed it more than the people helping me who never played it! It was a bloody fun boss and storyline on its own merits and getting the crap scared out of me from recognising just how nasty some moves would be if they hit was just icing on a perfect cake.
Honestly I came to FFXIV after a couple of years in Elder Scrolls Online and the way each job has a very unique feel is a massive change. ESO supposedly has 'roles' for each class but in the long term the only real effect on your build is whether you go for Magicka or Stamina as your main fuel for abilities. Every class is a good healer, a good tank, a good dps, to the point where everything just feels muddy.
ARR isn't boring, as much as it relies on too many typical MMORPG tropes it has stopped relying on in the later expansions. Things like go collect 5 bear asses and a bunch of fetch quests. The story is still good, it just takes longer than it should and they have done a lot to cut out the long bits.
When I started FF14, I was a WoW refugee and it took time to realize, this is a RPG with MMO elements, the story is first and foremost. After so much WoW, i was surprised how much i like being the main character, i like that this is like being the main character in my episodic TV show. I like that i learn to care about the Scions, they are going on the journey with me, not just the important quest giver who calls me "adventurer". Jesse Cox has a great video explaining the differences and why FF14 works so well.
ARR having those characteristics is in large part due to being ... you know, All that it has.
There was a point, after all, where ARR was the entire game. Where Rogue didnt exist, raids were niche and incredibly hard, and what side content did exist was sparse. Its not until mid-HW patches that the game reached a stable point where there was enough content to keep people playing for more than dailies and MSQ, esp if they werent raiders.
I do like ARR's "slow buildup" because with an MMO where I'm just entering and experiencing a large world for the first time, I want to feel like a nobody working their way up to being a reputable hero instead of just being treated like one from the start.
I love that you took the time to address not only your, but a lot of people's misconceptions of this wonderful game. It's not everyone's cup of coffee, but that's ok. For those of us who enjoy it, we're really glad you're here with us!
On a side (caffieinated) note - did you see the Mtn Dew collab with FF14? What are your thoughts? Will you be going after the Mtn Zu mount?
I can agree that misconceptions held me back and it's something I actually feel like needs to be corrected. I've allowed the crowds to decide what is good and what is bad but I needed to play it myself to say for certain!
I'm gonna look for the mount zu lol I don't really drink sodas though!
Been watching you almost since day one and seeing you enjoy the game just makes me happy.
It's been a great ride so far!
I'm certainly one of those weirdos that genuinely loves ARR. One of my hottest takes on the game is that I actually like it more than both Heavensward and Stormblood and that Gaius is probably still my favorite villain in the game. it lacks a lot of polish that the later stuff has for sure, but I just really like the world and story themes it's going for.
And that theme song that plays when you fight the high ranked Garleans, _Steel Reason_ is one of my favorite songs in the game. 🎸
ARR was just the beginning.. They had to try some things because they didn't know how all the players would react, especially after 1.0
I do like ARR too..
So much information from there is relevant for later parts of the game
Final Fantasy being a JRPG is a misconception. FF is a place where East and West meet. It has and has always had, aspects of both.
I feel like you might have some misconceptions about what jrpgs are because it's absolutely a jrpg
@@ErroratuRight, ff is definitely a jrpg
Final Fantasy is one of the main flagship JRPG series that exists. The only series that is more definitively a JRPG is probably Dragon Quest. If FF isn't a JRPG, nothing is.
A common misconception is that JRPG doesn't just literally mean Japanese role playing game as in, you know, made in Japan.
My biggest misconception was thinking the game would be ridiculously easy cause of the enemy telegraphed moves, boy was I not ready for all these boss mechanics and buttons I have to press. I’m used to being able to chill when I fight in RPGS and FF14 plays more like a fighting game with all the movement required.
It's a choreographed dance. Someone who says that must mean it's easy has never endured 100+ hours of dancer rehearsal like the rest of us.
The same "JRPGs are weird and look weird" misconception was why I was avoiding anything FF my entire life and now when I got first into FFXIV and then into FFVII I found out they are actually exactly perfectly what I've ever wanted to get from games and I am kinda mad at myself for having prejudice before and not getting to enjoy these amazing things sooner in my life
They're weird, but in a good way! They look weird.... because the artists like to slap too many zippers on the designs or give people funky, distinctive hairstyles - but again, that's all in a good way! There are no rules or third rails in JRPGs. They'll steal from any culture and do something cool with it. Christianity, Buddhism, Shinto, Vedic - any religion, any time and place, anything is fair game. (XIV will try to be as respectful about it as it can, like when they added in holi powder so now people can celebrate Diwali properly.)
ok so theres another youtube channel I enjoy (Grinding Gear) where one of the hosts thought it was a "stupid weeb game" too. 2 years down the line and all I can tell you is that you're not alone in looking at other jrpgs after FF - the guy who said it's a weeb game started watching anime again after playing FF 😂
I've tried not to spoil anything of my own playthrough by watching GG but it's not the first time that I've heard that they have had similar view. I'm seriously looking forward to playing FF16 when it's ready for PC.
I am incredibly grateful that I gave this game a chance!
Something I really don't think anyone actually talks about much, is not just that the free trial is so insane, but it's also pretty regularly updated as well. When I first started nearly 5 years ago, the free trial ended just after the 2nd major fight of ARR, where there's quite a big turn in the story (level 35). 3 years ago flying didn't even exist in ARR zones, and they chose to give it to anyone who completes ARR 2.0, rather than just paying members. And coming up shortly with the new expansion we're getting a visual update and the two areas they focused on first are the new expac, and ARR. Even then there are still fundamental changes to basic graphical things such as grass textures which are being applied everywhere. Hells, we even had a full change of nearly every dungeon to allow NPC support meaning if you don't want to play with others, you can, and there's always rumours that they may do this with trials as well to make it so that when the game does get set to pasture, it will still be playable for those 30 years in the future. The amount of work these devs put in, and not just to current paying members, is so absurd and should be praised time and time again. It'll never be perfect but my god will they do everything in their power to change that.
I don't like the community bashing on ARR and SB, saying that they suck to the streamers, that's what they're gonna think too! Usually..
But I'm glad you got what Final Fantasy has always been about.. The juxtaposition between super serious and super silly moments makes for a bigger impact for the player, and that's one of the biggest reasons I love the series.
The biggest issues I have with ARR are the players, they will color and warp your perception of the game before you have even gotten to play it and their biggest issue is most havent touched ARR since like 2012. So they know nothing of the improvements that have happened. They are telling about a version of the game that no longer exists. So they leave you searching for this mythical slog or slowness that doesnt exist, then your mind is rationalizing where it might be, then you in turn regurgitate the same thing to even newer players. Which begets a cycle that continues to perpetuate itself.
The best way to break it is just to take the game as it is, make up your own mind and ignore others perspectives. Id say the game doesnt get good after some arbitrary number of hours, its good from the outset, but gets better as you progress through it.
Players are the worst part of most games hahaha, can’t trust em, half of em played WOW.
Same problem with GW2. Most people still think "oh that game from 2012 that has no content." It's been 12 years of content!
It wasn't even that bad before the revamp. I mean it is more streamlined now, but it really was no worse than doing literally anything in WoW.
I have introduced the game to litterally DOZENS of players and the exact number of 0 among them did keep playing precisely because it felt way too slow. What you're describing is the opinion of players who did keep playing which is a huge bias.
Of course, the bias works in both ways : some players won't try FFXIV because it's said to be slow, thus never allowing them to actually test out the main content.
Pretending the earlier expansions are on par with current games is viciously wrong but thank goodness, there is an extended trial for this very reason (although some limitations are absurd). People who've never played an MMO will also be extremely lenient whereas experienced ones will litterally sleep on the plot's pace (and I've cleared it twice this very year, I know how slow it is) .
One thing to keep in mind as well is new players' intrinsic motivations. Those who play for the gameplay and will tackle savage and ultimate are extremely rare even though it's made more and more accessible. It might be because the appeal of the earlier expansions is very distant to the gameplay these players seek (which is why none of my friends joined FFXIV), which is why anyone NOT aiming precisely at this kind of content shouldn't give much attention to the "sluggish" reputation of the early game.
@@cattysplat Well even on release, it had (from my point of view) a very appealing content from the very first minute, whereas the first 100 hours I've spent on FF were very boring (I had to pause my sub multiple times).
However in both game, the multiplayer aspect can give a completely different feeling from one player to the next. I simply believe GW2 relies much, much less on it.
I'm starting to hate that veteran players tell new players that ARR is boring or slow because its not, especially compared to other MMOs and other FF games.
The pacing of ARR is what is being called out when it is said as "slow" which is true the pacing of it is not great. Yes we get it it's after they nuked the old and rebuilt it. But when the Devs have come out and said they are still looking into working on ARR to make it's pacing better.
i seen many people quit partly because the early game's lack of skills. combat until you get to about 30 for many classes tends to feel like you are spending a lot of time waiting to attack.
mainly because veteran players played the original version off arr that was long and a slog and felt like it was ever lasting. I havent gone back and played it since all the reworks, but from what I've heard it is now a much better experience.
Yeah and it can turn new players off of even wanting to give it a chance in the first place. I think ARR's main issue is that lucirious 71 (previously 101) quests long post game. They really should've shortened it to around 30-50 quests to bring it in line with every expansions post-game.
FF14 is made by MMO players. yoshi p has talked about playing wow and other mmos pretty openly.
the reason dungeons are the way they are, the reason why there's no real builds or anything, is because yoshi p knows that the players will find the "best" path, the "best" build and force other players to follow that or deny them participation in content. so instead of making customizable builds and expansive dungeons, he focuses on making them good within the single path/single build constraint players will force on the community anyways.
there was a time when Enemies had Elemental Resistances, so some classes were not worth using for some fights.
you also had a time you had to level several classes to unlock certain jobs, and then on top of that, you had to level jobs for Cross class skills. while i meself don't mind leveling several classes(i kinda started off as a Melee DPS main but now im a Flex main), i do think the game is better without trying to force players to play everything(when i healed for the first time when they had the cross class system, i was really worried i would be a bad healer).
Welcome to the community! Hope to see you in the game some time and maybe help with raids and such down the line
They did a lot of QoL stuff to improve ARR. Flying alone was a huge boon, not to mention mount speed increases, trimmed fat from quests, redone dungeons, Waking Sands teleport tickets, not to mention more foundational stuff like the game just being a lot more responsive and better feeling than it was at launch. I think a lot of people remember early ARR, where many more folks were likely to skip a lot of text (outside of FF11 players, actually reading quest text in an MMO wasn't something most people cared about for the longest time) so they probably just have this fuzzy memory of lots of skipping of endless text, lots of fetch questing, slow and kind of weird early dungeons, unresponsive gameplay, a trillion slow trips to the Waking Sands on foot, etc.
ARR is so much better now. It's still a bit slow, but it's not like horrifically slow or anything. It just takes a lot more time doing worldbuilding. Does still stumble from time to time with what was clearly them trying to pad for time after rebuilding the game in a hurry, but I think it's totally enjoyable now and not nearly as off-putting.
One thing I saw that might make things a little faster/easier for job switching is that you can put the gearsets on a separate hot bar, then click that to switch jobs. No need to constantly open character sheet, open gear sets, right click the one you want, equip, close all the windows.
Search for the "Desperius Clean UI" videos for a fantastic hack that hides hotbars in the unused base class controls, and uses timers to auto disable them. It takes an hour or two to program it, but once you get them set up, it's incredible and your UI is very very pretty.
Love to see you have the Torgal Mount and are going to play 16 I've just completed that 2 days ago and gods was it a ride.
What I love about AAR is you don't start of as the Warrior of Light you start of as an Adventure and you slowly earn the title of The Warrior of Light.
Your not dropped in to the Hero role straight away it's a build up towards it and you make friends along away, shed alot of tears ( I hate you Yoshi P for making me cry every expansion ) because you create such a bond with those characters. It's amazing the amount of world building and character building they do.
I've been on the game for a long time ( think 8 or 9 years) and I've loved every minute of it ( I have 3 characters 😂)
Me and my brother actually dragged our mum into playing the game and even though she has atharitis it's still easy for her to enjoy and accessible for her.
The other wonderful thing about this game is you don't have to play on it every single day once you done what you want.
Between expansions you can unsub ( and Yoshi P encourages it ) and play something else.
I've just completed Final Fantasy XVI a few days ago and before that I was playing Baldur's Gate 3 with my brother and boyfriend (who also plays 14) you don't feel pressured to play on it or aren't forced to like alot of other MMORPGs.
I will recommend this game for anyone looking for a first MMORPG as its so easy to get in to and has such a wonderful storyline.
This was a sick video! Subbing, looking forward to following your journey!
I'm gonna say: The expac I come back the most is ARR. You technically can't find hidden treasure in the open areas, but there's many hidden vendors that sell special collectibles after some FATEs, there's yellow questlines that expand a lot of lore for things like Gelmorra (the Duskwight hidden civilization) that barely get mentioned in the MSQ and other hidden goodies (do "The Greatest Story Never Told", it's certainly the... questline of all time) and there's many other small details that sadly are missing from other expacs. Everything else in other expacs is a step up from ARR, but the first one has so many small things that I love to see
I'm glad you got to experiment the game regardless of your misconceptions! ARR is a slow start like any other MMO would be, because it's basically the world building part of the game, so it's to be expected that you're on the phase of learning who your own character is in the big scenario and meeting people, learning about the magic system, history, etc. WoW was very slow for me at the start too. One thing I think that makes it a bit more noticeable on ARR is that very few cutscenes have voice acting, while as the expansions came in, they kept raising the amount of voiced scenes, which change the pace of the game drastically. You're gonna notice that especially when you reach Shadowbringers. The mocap, the camera play, voice acting, everything looks more cinematic. And it's nice to play for a long time and watch as the game evolves and you get something better quality with each expansion.
About the free trial, we gotta give them the credit lol They do know how to pull people in to play the game. Being able to play the base game and 2 expansions for free is already enough to know if you like it or not, and if you're involved in the story.
Now, about it being a JRPG and being so different from western games, let's say Yoshi-P told the dev team to play WoW and take notes of what made the game feel good for them. So there's an intention to make it a game that can be enjoyed by people around the world, while also staying true to the final fantasy roots.
The Free Trial used to be far less generous until August 2020. Originally, you were capped at Lv35 for all your jobs and MSQ Lv35 as well. There even used to be a time limit further back than that.
Shadowbringers patch 5.3 is what first expanded the Free Trial. At this point, the trial cap was raised to Lv60 and players could go all the way to the very end of Heavensward 3.56.
The Free Trial expansion that now includes Stormblood was very recent. I'd like to say it was either 6.4 or 6.5 that did it. I still find it mind-boggling that you can play everything (except Ultimates and PvP) included in ARR, HW, and StB all for free barring some major social restrictions.
A week or so ago someone made a Warframe new player tips TIER LIST, so I want to pop in the idea of perhaps doing one in the future for XIV from the PoV of someone fairly new to the game :3
Lovely video ❤
I feel like for ARR, a lot of comments "its boring" do come for older players (i have been playing on and off for sincer ARR release), but there is at least one part of game that more on a dull side, after certain trial when you go around colleting cheese and wine and maybe few of the arr. At least thats been overall negative point with friends who started a few months ago(still only midly negattive). FFXIV is still the only FF game i have properly played. Cant wait till heavendwards story, will be fun to see what you think
ARR is so much faster than it used to be. Veterens still probably think you need to do sidequests.
I’m currently playing FF 14 on console. As as final fantasy vet, it’s criminal I didn’t pick this up sooner.
I think the ARR issue comes from the fact that most people need to play through all of it now, where as someone like me played it live back in 2013-2014, so I got it in parts. This made it more enjoyable for me. ARR in general is not the most exciting content, but it pays off later, as this is where all the world/character building is.
FFXIV does a very good job of balancing the hard core ramp up story, and the chillax smoothness. I think it was Jesse Cox, might of been Preach, brain cant remember, that pointed out that they ramp it up, you do the epic fight, and then they calm it down so you can breathe again before re-ramping up.
I do want to point something out. Technically for most GW2 classes it would be 15 skills thanks to weapon swap. 5 for weapon set 1, 5 for weapon set 2, and the other 5 thingies. Technically Elementalists would have what 25, 5 per element, and the 5 other bonus.
A lot of the issue is also that it's a million times longer due to being 50 levels instead of 10 and the post-game having well over double the amount of quests as any expansion originally and still is nearly double of any of them.
@@ElainaMaruyama excellent point i didnt think of.
Ironically the reasons you put about GW2 are exactly why I DIDN'T like GW2. And I think that's why FF14 grabed me so quick. I didn't like the customisation behind classes in GW2 because it had that feeling of "no one is special" and I much prefer playstyles with specific roles and expectations. I'm just a person who likes "you picked this class, you tank, your job is to keep aggro during dungeons". When a GW2 friend first told me you could just use whatever format in dungeons I knew I was in for a rough time lol. I also didn't like the feel of combat in GW2 because nothing really felt like a challenge early on, plus levelling didn't feel fun or like an achievement because you didn't really get much for it. I loooove levelling in FF14 because you're always earning new abilities, get new class quests to do, have awesome new armour (to glam :P).
I totally forgot the fact that FF14 didn't have class building, and I think it's because I got so used to WoW classic where, sure, you can cater your abilities some, but there's specific meta and 'good' and 'bad' builds that mean you'll basically only be using one build anyway. It feels like FF14 went with that concept and just removed the bloat, and I love it. And I love that you can just switch to any class you want without having to make alts. In WoW classic I loved having multiple classes to play depending on what I was feeling that day, but good god, being forced to run thropugh the same quests 8+ times, taking the same paths, killing the same monsters etc is sole crushing lol. FF14 got the alt problem sorted.
First time viewer. I really enjoyed your breakdown of ideas before and after your time spent with the game. I'm also glad it opened up the world of new potential JRPGs to experience! Great video overall!
I'm really glad that you're enjoying the game! I've had a lot of fun watching you play!
One addition I'll add on the cost aspect:
Keep in mind that the game at max level still doesn't have WoW's "weekly/daily activity" aspect to it unless you want to engage in it. If you don't, you won't really lose anything.
Naoki Yoshida, the game's director & producer, has said that they accept that players will subscribe for ONE month and play the new content, see the new chapter of the story in the patch, and then cancel for the next 2 months until the next patch. He's addressed this very clearly: "There are other games to play. Spend time with your family. If you come back when the next patch releases, we've done a good job."
FFXIV is not designed to keep you devoted to it every day/week/month. The team does a really good job of respecting your time.
....unless you buy your own house, then you've made a commitment. 😅
It's tough because I've tried to get a few friends into the game over the years and ARR is a big deterrent for a lot of people because it's effectively all world building and set up and combat is very slow for a pretty long time so it can give the impressioj that FF14 combat is slow and easy when it picks up massively, like playing level 90 and level syncing down to ARR content is so vastly different it's night and day. So a lot of us try to temper expectations by saying "Just stick through ARR and you won't regret it" because combat picks up and the story really starts hitting it's stride in Heavensward but I do realize that just saying that, can actually discourage newbies too makinf them think ARR is bad when it isn't, it's just slower than the others because it's introducing you to the world.
the thing is, we call ARR slow because in the patch content and onward events happen much faster. ARR has become slow purely by comparison as each expac only covers 10 more levels +patch content whereas ARR covers 1-50. I always tell new players to take it at their own pace, get distracted, do whatever. cause there's so much in just ARR to experience aside from MSQ.
if you were interested in a tank that has more magical defense, check out dark knight now that you've just hit ishgard. it has mit actions that is specifically focused on magical damage. plus it's legit one of the best job quest storylines in a game full of good ones
You used to have more flexibility to customize your charscter back when ARR launched and a bit less through Hesvensward. This was removed because people kept kicking people out of dungeons and raids if they didn't have specific abilities. You did this by leveling other jobs to get specific abilities that you could bring over to other jobs, and there used to be character points that you could allot into 5 areas. In 1.0 you even had the ability to build your charscter for elemental specific defense, which the choice of patron diety mattered. There was a lot more choices in ARR when it launched. All of it was removed for a few reasons. They wanted to combat toxicity that would occur if you didn't have the right build or Job, and to make the game more balanced and allow every job to have viability in end game content, which many mmorpgs struggle with.
The "Problems" with it was two things; needing to level other classes to unlock the Job you wanted and 4.x skill customization made Is important abilities like Swiftcast be optional, so you had healers doing full 8 second rez when it could have been avoided.
I do miss using blizz 2 for healers to deal aoe dmg at low level dungeons tho. Sucks now just standing there doing single target into a mob meh
There are certain builds that come in handy depending on what you're doing through using materia; for example, for savage or ultimate prog, a healer might have some more piety to help out with keeping everyone alive. you can change your materia loadouts for what you want--- another example is warrior having a slightly different materia setup than other tanks because of its skillset. this doesn't really affect the main game very much though
As a JRPG fan, I really respect that you were able to overcome your view of the genre. A lot of JRPGs can definitely seem flashy and wacky on the surface, but the vast majority of them have a ton of emotional depth with wonderful writing and characters. In my experience they are some of the most moving games I've played, exploring themes of the human condition, the meaning of life, loss and suffering, theology, philosophy, psychology, and more. Games like NieR, Persona, and Xenoblade particularly come to mind alongside FF. And FF14 definitely has a lot of those elements, Endwalker in particular made me cry several times, so I really hope you enjoy the rest of your journey. It's a shame that a lot of people miss these games because of surface-level preconceptions
ARR is the base pillar for which all future story telling to come is held up. Sure, when you've been to the endgame 5 separate times and seen how the story continually tops itself over and over, as well as the relative low number of skills you have available to you during that period; you can become quite jaded over how slow ARR seems to be in comparison, but that absolutely does NOT mean it is bad or boring by any stretch of the imagination and especially not to a sprout experiencing it for the very first time. We need to normalize letting people enjoy the foundation of FFXIV without introducing our 3000 hours of in game time based opinions right off the bat. ARR serves it's story telling roots very, very well and it's experiences are integral to the full picture that is painted over the course of 5 (soon to be 6!) full expansions.
I always get a good chuckle at people whose number one complant about XIV is the lack of customization. When we all know that these people who complain are the first ones to google Icyveins to find out the best META build for that class to begin with.
I kind of wish people wouldn't prematurely 'warn' and apologize for the ARR pacing, as much as I wish people would just be patient and try to enjoy it rather than heed those warnings and look for reasons to complain or skip, or just buy into the assumption they won't enjoy any of it.
Exactly! I was so caught off guard when I tried the game and it was great, even just the base ARR version!
If you want to get into JRPGs.... might I make a recommendation? Try Tales of Berseria. It's a game that's got a lot of gloomy story but yet lots of humor mixed in (thanks to everybody's favorite witch), and the protagonist's voice actor is just ludicrously awesome at what she does. In fact, all the voice actors in ToB are awesome, definitely play that one with English voices. It's also a very fast-paced game with lots of customization and options, and playing Velvet is like a constant power trip but yet enemies can mess you up if you play haphazardly.
EDIT: I realize there are lots of Tales games, but they are not connected story-wise except for a very scant few. ToB is one of those few, but ToB is the prequel to the other game it's connected to, so jumping into the series with ToB is fine. You won't feel lost or anything story-wise and the game has an excellent tutorial to teach you how to play it.
I’ll say this, you being in a good spot post ARR means you’ll be in for a treat going into the rest of the game. It rockets in quality
I get a stronger sense of a sunken cost in GW2 than I do in subscription based games. If I pay a sub fee, and I play for that full month, I'm getting everything I could have out of that subscription... in GW2 if I buy a bag upgrade or some other perk and then I stop playing that character, I then wasted my money.... whether I quit the game completely or start a new character or whatever. I highly prefer the subscription model myself.
I can understand that argument, it's a valid point. All the money I've poured into gw2 I don't have anymore cause I don't really play it. Interesting thought really
I agree with you on ARR. I enjoyed it very much.
It's been great fun! 2.55 was a hell of a finish!
The issue with ARR that people bring up is that it used to be really bloated with filler quests between important main story quest events. One particular example was the tedious questline to unlock the Titan trial which had you run around doing a LOT of fetch quests and a lot of time spent doing something apparently meaningless just to get a thumbs up from a few NPCs. Even the end of that questline has the NPCs in question asking you if you minded being tugged left and right all along. This was corrected along with other parts of the ARR MSQ and made some of the base game along with post 2.x content more direct and smooth. Also, ARR is basically the setup in getting to know the world you'll (hopefully) live in for a long while along with the people you'll meet often and interact with.
As for combat, the action bloat is somewhat averted with new expansions either altering some elements of jobs or 'upgrading' some abilities instead of adding new ones... that or organically make them part of a familiar skillset. This goes double for console / controller players as the crosshotbar is a pretty well designed system for controller gameplay but it does mean that to comfortably play, you basically can't have more than 24 actions without needing to swap active crossbars. But by doing that, this also means that the 1-50 progression of abilities you can use feels a bit empty since you have very few options on your bar. Though, that also means that early game doesn't require you as much mastery and further levels will slowly have you add more elements to your jobs to learn and get a hang of.
As for the trial, it has evolved with time. It used to be time-limited in ARR but once Shadowbringers came out, the trial was then extended to ARR + HW with no time limitation then later on to ARR + HW + StB mid Endwalker. Doing so, I think, is intended as to allow new players to try the game at their own pace, no time or investment pressure, as you put it, and just do stuff. Once you're done with the introduction that ARR makes for you, then you're dropped in HW where storytelling takes a step up and then StB where you finally get to do something that has been hinted at since ARR. And the end of Stormblood itself leading into Shadowbringers? Well, most of the time, by that point, either you're hooked or you saw enough that you want to move on. And that's okay.
A bit ironic when we think about it but the static design of jobs, having their own flow and such without gear builds or specs makes it so that end game usually revolves more about a player's mastery of their job than padding results with numbers. Sure, a player with better gear will have an overall edge in term of mitigation, healing or damage... but having a player in endgame gear doesn't guarantee they can play their job well or optimally. That can also be said of other MMOs but in Ultimate and Savage content, it really shows when you have a Ninja that knows when to optimally setup his Mug debuff on the boss or a Monk being able to deal damage effectively despite having no range attacks. Anything below Savage is more than doable by about anyone with a bit of effort but Savage and Ultimate requires mastery.
And yeah... FFXIV is a JRPG... in fact, the game is best described as a RPGMMO : a RPG first but MMO second. There,s likely a ton of references you do not get from not having played other FF titles but at the same time, you get to enjoy the game in a perspective without premade expectations based on those other games. And yeah, this game can get pretty dark (heck, you'll see in time, trust me) but it does have its hijinx too to bring the mood back up some. Not only in the Hildibrand questlines but even in some MSQ and sidequests. FF is known for their strong stories and FFXIV really, REALLY lives up to that reputation. It isn't afraid to tackle really tough questions, philosophical or otherwise, to make its villains believable and human, even sometime redeemable but it also knows that it can't be grimdark all the time... that's what the Souls game are for, really!
I will never understand people saying that the story starts slow and ARR is slow to get going or whatever. The story is intriguing right off the bat.
I love ARR because it really sets a good base. You get Eorzean Politics 101 spoonfed to you. Here's the commerce center surrounded by refugee camps, here's the pirate city that broke its treaties with their neighbors, here's the weird one we don't talk about in good company because the Elementals will greenwrath us. So, when things start to happen, you know WHY they're happening because you've just started with these three city-states and its not too hard to keep track of. And the build from there is pretty organic since we have bits of Ishgard and Ala Mhigo already there kinda lurking about. It's great worldbuilding.
Also all the little mini-stories between NPCs if you talk to them between quests, like the ill-fated adventurer party that starts the same time as you, or the people at the Waking Sands living their own lives with their own goals and relationships that you can watch flourish and grow before everything goes to hell.
That was an awesome video, subscribed
It's always interesting to see the new player rollercoaster happen in ff14. It's focus is so different from other MMOs and there's so much content that's mandatory before you're "caught up" that you want to keep going and going until the next big story beat.
It's a great ride, and it's why so many MSQ vampires exist.
It's definitely a different story (no pun intended) when you catch up to current patches. That's a long time away though
Really awesome you’re still loving the game! If you want to really immerse in a JRPG (the turn based style), you’d want any of the pixel games that released on NES and SNES (there’s a Pixel Remaster bundle now for all 6 of them) or 3D gen FF7 up to FF13. I loved FF16, but it’s an ARPG style and FF15 was the start of moving away from the turn based.
The thing i find about the whole ARR slow thing, is that those people are comparing it to the latest expansions, the game is so damn good by that point that yes ARR does appear slow but its still like comparing a $300 steak with a $50 one, both are amazing but one has that high quality than the other, so it makes people who havent tried either come into the experience expecting something subpar when its actually still really good xD if that makes sense...
When you consider almost everyone skips most MMO stories because they are not worth it, with developers not even caring if players skip it either, that a story worth experiencing is already a 100x improvement over every other game.
The issue is that a lot of the time, people who say "ARR is slow" are usually trying to rush through the story. And in their case it's kinda a counterdiction because as they rush, it makes it more prominate how much longer than it is. The *other* half of the reason some may say ARR is slow are the people who *there* at the *beginning* of ARR. So they had to wait months before HW (two of my friends fall under the second catagory and I've had friends who fall under the first catagory that treat it like WoW until they hit HW and they're just lost because they tried to speed run ARR.)
I never felt it being long but it's because I played *for* the story. So I took my personal time with it. But I also was playing it before the free trial is the way it is now (it used to be 14 days only when HW first came out, not up to "x" lvl.) It's why I never really touch WoW because while the lore was intresting the story for the game? Not really well done for me personally, but I grew up with JRPGs and the like. My first game I played myself was Final Fantasy 9, which what drew me to FF14 personally. (And why I'm so excited for dawntrail because they're putting in more references to that one game in the expansion even though small like the Viper class. and the Collector's edition having the Ark summon as a mount.)
I came to FF14 from GW2 as well, back when Heavensward was just wrapping up. I'd played Final Fantasy games before so I had some concept of how they were, but FF14 has continually blown me away. I even enjoyed ARR though I did find it slow and frustrating at times. At others it's genuinely enjoyable. I do every side quest, and read every bit of dialogue.
It definitely scratches a different itch from any other MMO i've ever played and I think that's part of why I love it.
ARR is "Boring" because it is the slower, odd-job buildup towards what happens later. One way to look at it is this: You are brand new at being an adventurer. No one in the world knows you or what you are capable of. They don't see a 'hero', they see 'just another newbie adventurer', so you get the simple grunt jobs. "Hey, go fetch some eggs.", "Hey, Deliver this simple message.", "Hey, collect these supplies."--jobs given to anyone, not to the hero. In doing these 'boring' and 'slow' quests, you also get pulled into a couple of other quests where you show you just might be special--you do a heroic thing here and there. Then they say, "You might be special, let's give you a big job or two". Throughout ARR, you are referred too as "adventurer", and by the end, they're referring to you as a "hero". A 'hero' doesn't get so many "Collect Eggs" quests. THAT is where the story "picks up" as you're now treated as someone special, and now you get all the 'cool jobs' and the story starts revolving around you and what you do.
ARR is NOT a bad or boring game. It's a 'rise to recognition' game. It's a solid 8/10 game. Very good and worth playing by anyone. It's overshadowed by the players because when the expansions come around, they blow the base game out of the sky with how much they improved it.
Remember--ARR was a game built on three foundations:
1: We need to make a game to replace a horrible failure with 3/10 review scores.
2: We are still learning how to make a good MMO of this day and age.
3: We have only a couple of years to make it.
Because of, or perhaps in spite of this, they made a very, very good game. Not a Perfect 10/10, but one that received 8/10 reviews and did very very well. Then, having learned what it takes to make a game of today (2), having successfully replaced the failure (1), and having the normal expansion building time (3), they were able to crank out near perfection on the first expansion and beyond.
Many many people discredit ARR and it does make me so sad. Trying to get someone into a game but saying "just skip" or "the first 200 hours dont matter" is just ridiculous.
I'm so happy you enjoyed it!
I started playing FFXIV one week after the Heavensward Release almost 9 years ago..
ARR and the Road to Heavensward was way longer at that time..
But I really enjoyed it. There are a lot of little bits and information the game references or give more insight way later in the game. Like characters, backgrounds, subtle hints.
To tell new player that ARR is slow really breaks the immersion of the game.. It has not a lot of cutscenes with voice acting (especially compared to Shadowbringers and Endwalker) but it's the foundation of the overall story.
When reading a book you don't skip the first two or three chapters because someone said it's slow and boring.
Yeah, everyone should play the way they like but I kinda hate it when ppl skip ARR and then ask questions later..
*old man's voice* I remember the old days before the extended free trial, we used to play up to around level 30 and the questline ended with the attack at the Scion's base with everyone being killed, those bastards would hook us in with a cliffhanger
I believe more games need to stop the pretense of customization and just create fixed 'builds' like FF14 while giving freedom to swap between them with no penalty while out of combat and/or not in group/instance content.
Most big MMO's with fixed classes using skilltrees or something similar do not have 'builds' to play with in reality if you think about it. There's always the silent expectation that ONE setup is used by every person because that is the optimal one for the content and everything else is unacceptable. Having an unusual build that isn't the mathematically 'best' means risking being excluded from said content by other players.
All those current systems do is give people the illusion of choice. Sometimes people manage to do impressive things with 'unusual' builds, but those are very niche situations and, if they impact the gameworld at large are often changed for interfering with the intended way the game is meant to be played by the devs.
I suppose I always hope to be that interesting "niche" build that ends up saving the day but I can see your point I don't have to worry about my build being optimal or unusual. Just play the class as intended
@@CaffeinatedDad I feel compelled to elaborate that I mean this only for pve/story focused MMORPG/multiplayer games. Talents and builds are excellent in, among other things, exclusively pvp games or singleplayer experiences. it works when the game actively ties in the apples and oranges idea to the cycle of fun. Not when it it can fall to the cookie cutter ideal of the masses.
I just played the game, finished Arr.
leveled alt jobs to 50 using palace.
I actually didn't buy hw or stormblood at the start until I had my fun with the original ARR experience midway into HW's life span.
then once I learned of the drk I bought the next expansion.
then came out stormblood and I was there on day one basically.
Been doing that ever since and capped out all jobs.
I never read anything about it.
I did a trial with a friend that later left the game cos' of the tough rp community.
Ffxiv is my first MMO, I have always been a FF fan since VII though. I can't believe it took me so long to finally play XIV. I think you are really going to enjoy Heavensward. I am almost done with all the pre Storm blood stuff and really started getting attached to a lot of the characters. (Yesa Holvik)
Actually for ARR , you start with a blank slate and as you progress through the journey of being the WOL the emotions you experience and the NPC that you meet along the way and the members of your FC who help you on the way are way more fufilling to me than other mmos , In ARR you start with a couple of weapon skills but as you progress and level up more would be acquired through quests ie story quests and you actually learn how to play your class better, My main is a PLD, did not know what is main attack followed up by your secondary GCD and timing to keep an eye on the cooldown of your other skills to do damage to your enemies. So now i know how to play my class better and am eagerly waiting for DT to drop. Cheers..😁😁😁 (Side note do note Don't use the boost to lvl 80, to bypass the lvl up progress of your character for any class , you will miss out on how to play the class and would be genrally cluless/ useless to any PUG you encounter.)
On point five that is one of the charms of FF franchise, the wackiness of it combined with some serious undertones, beautiful story telling and this is gonna sound very anime like, but the stories of ShB and EW are just so good at making you feel that if you have hope for the future you can take on those moments of despair.
There is some 'builds' when you do fresh endgame raiding, but much like builds in other games, there is one correct choice haha. You will materia meld your crafted gear a certain way based on your job and you will mix and match savage raid and tomestone gear based on your class needs as well. For instance in EW (No spoilers) some of the tank gear had skill speed on it, and as a Paladin, you want to avoid skillspeed at any cost.
ayooo new dad video dropped! nice
I had alot of the same misconceptions when i tried the game a second time right before Shadowbringers came out, especially the slow gameplay thing, i mean, i tried alot of MMO's before FF 14 but i to played a decade of WoW and its hard to get the rhythm of that game out of your system when u are trying other MMO's.
As for JRPG's, its a great catagory of games u'll enjoy i think, though FF 16 is not my thing(great characters and visuals, meh story) there are plenty of other games like Persona or Xenoblade chronicles that will blow u away with their amazing gameplay and stories.
Just take your time and don't rush it and be sure to try plenty of different jobs, its facinating how different they all feel when playing and how different their skill ceilings are.
Xenoblade is incredibly underrated and despite it getting to where it is because of Nintendo basically saving Monolithsoft, which means it is pretty much NIntendo console exclusive, many people will not ever discover this series or give it a chance. It doesn't help that it has a strong misconception of being "trashy weeb games" in part of XC2 overblown telephone hate, in large part brought in by the Smash.. don't get me wrong, it being on Nintendo has given it considerable attention compared to when they were under Bandai Namco.
but tl;dr being locked to Nintendo really limits its growth and popularity.
Related to XIV… a good amount of VAs also had their start or early video game career castings in the Xenoblade Chronicles series!
I just reached heavens ward and my biggest gripe so far is nothing can kill me outside some later trials and raids. I just feel invincible in the overworld, that last solo duty was just a glorified cutscene with an npc healing me every time I took damage. From what I read that never really improves.
Honestly, every time I watch a video with someone from the GW2 community, it reminds me of how chill and welcoming they are. FFXIV is lucky to get them over here to play our game.
what I love about Final Fantasy is that they build on the story. Other games like WoW change the story and "retcon" the old content to match their new ideas / themes, where FFXIV adds onto the older content and it's still all relevent and makes sense. Also the ability to have all classes and professions on one character makes it so much easier than having to have "alts" for every thing.
Bear in mind that the original ARR MSQ was completely reworked and shortened considerably. I started back when there were no space, and I played it as a secondary game with friends as a break from other games. I didn't find getting to 50 terribly entertaining, but once I got into some of the post-MST stuff (2.1-2.5) it got better. Then when Heavens ward dropped, it actually became my favorite MMO from ar I und that time on.
The only restrictions you have in trial is trading items and gils, marketboard, owning retainer for extra inventory, get into FC and also pvp... about trading it actually saving you from getting someone unintentionally giving you gils and items too. Sometimes someone did likely giving you a useless item you don't need and that's pretty annoying too. Until you finished Stormblood in trial, it's up to you whether or not you wanna buy games with subs. Keep it up👍
I’ve watched like 30 of the these kinds of videos on CZcams talking about how players giving this game a shot thinking they aren’t going to like it but actually end up loving it. All I have to say is this game is the LITERAL definition of the quote, “You can’t judge a book by its cover”. There is so much world, story, community, fun, emotion, nostalgia, etc..that goes into this game, that I think anyone that is interested in MMOs as a genre, needs to at least try this game. You will be doing yourself a favor.
ARR was fucking rough... like I was on the verge of quitting and throwing this game to the void on multiple occasions. Friends and memes got me through it...
I've seen this quite a few times and to a degree I can understand. It was slow at some points but not terrible all the way through
I feel like Im forever trying to get past post MSQ quests.. lol Im sure if I played it straight through it would of been welcome gaps between waiting for patches.. but doing it all at once .. its overwhelming trying to get to the end .. I'm mainly a Crafter and gatherer.. and I just want to get to the new zones and all the aether currents..
i will always tell people if you want to play FF14, Start with the Free Trial first, and try to get to at least level 30. and if they like it? play till the end of the Free Trial before you make the leap to buying the game.
the Free Trial Limitations are a pain, but its better then paying for a game you don't end up liking.
i seen many people just quit after only an hour or 2 because they felt the game was slow(they should see classes like Monk and Gunbreaker in late game then).
One of the things I was mistaking, was that the combat was going to be overly complicated. Slow in the beginning, overly complicated later.
Given, some of the jobs are a bit more complicated than others, but they're all very well understandable, even for a spaz like myself.
I was also very judgemental on special effects. When I saw a piece where my friend played, it looked so overly flashy compared to Warcraft, that I doubted I'd enjoy it.
Lots of fireworks, no actual fun combat. Man, was I wrong. Everything adds to the experience.
ARR, while slow, isn't -bad-... it's what pulled me into the game in the first place, the story.
They make it very much around your boy or girl being the Warrior of Light. They do their best to make it a very intense, unique experience.
True, the follow up expansions have stories which only got better and better, but ARR is a very misunderstood part, in my mind!
In my opinion (I'm free to have it, no?) Final Fantasy has everything Warcraft wished it had, along with some other games.
Housing? FFXIV has it. A bard music system? FFXIV has it. PvP? FFXIV made it fun for me where I hated it in other games. A thriving, friendly community? It seems the community in FFXIV left most of it's toxicity at the doorstep of other games. There's even a vivid dance club community with well decorated venues and live DJ's.
For every con you can give this game, there's 5 pro's. For every flaw you think it has, it also has you baffled by the fact you're wrong.
I've played many MMO's... but this one? This one is home.
ffxiv is a journey. there is no perfect way to play, and there is alot to learn. I have played since HW and I am still learning new thing about the game all the time. Luckily most players are ready to help and are patient. I'm glad to see you give this game an honest shot and to see you keep trying and learning. Continue on fellow warrior of light.
You brought up enjoying hildibrand, and it's definitely one of those sidquests that has its lovers and haters, but I would always recommend it and paying attention, not necessarily to the jokes and laughs ,though do enjoy those if you do, but to the animations, cutscene styles, and effects. One of the actual purposes of the hildibrand stories isn't just to have funny gag sidestories for players to laugh at, but to train their animators and riggers, and even more importantly, test out new techniques and applications for effects and animations.
By being a goofy gag side story, they alleviate the issue of some of the animations looking "weird" or "off" by it being... weird and off in the context of the world around it. Meanwhile they're learning how to use the tools of their engine and new tools they've created to help improve how the game looks in the expansions going forward. Ridiculous Facial Animations? They're trying to improve how expressive characters can be in cutscenes! Without going into spoilers for how it plays out, the endwalker hildibrand storyline had a lot of specialized, custom model animations that they've never really toyed around with at that level, and even in the benchmark for dawntrail we could see some of that work put into action with more complex animations for our character in the benchmark.
For this reason I'm really looking forward to the Endwalker cutscenes. The issue previously was that your character often kind a just stood or ran around in action cutscenes (which I could understand as otherwise they probably would have to add unique animations for every class to all those scenes), but the Endwalker hildibrand cutscenes showed that it doesn't have to be that way with a lot of action from our WoL.
The main reason to start paying the sub early is to join a group and gain access to kost social features
I also enjoyed ARR.
Only thing I hated was dungeons but they updated all the story dungeons.
I feel like aar pick up when the sicons that weren't killed needed to rescued.
I was going to do the trial. I ended up subbing within a day.
So on the first point ARR is good the reason why people say ARR sucks and is slow is because HW onward is great so by comparison ARR is trash. People seem to forget that ARR is good because we have experienced the greatness that is after it but on its own ARR is still pretty good on its own (it is slow in the 35-45 range but its 50 levels in base game its gonna take longer then the expansions that only have 10 levels)
I'm slightly surprised by our comment about how easy it is to play other roles coming from GW2. GW2 hands out exp boosts regularly and you have the majority of your kit as soon as you equip a weapon. Do you find leveling an alt FFXIV equivalent in time/effort as hero points in GW2?
I play GW2 casually as a thief and necromancer. But because I'm so casual, I just follow whatever build there is in the first website I Google instead of thinking up one myself. So for me choosing a FF class is similar to choosing a build on GW2.
As a super casual GW2 player, I am always interested in your POV. Cheers to 2.55 tonight.
The way I see it, it being slow doesn’t mean it’s bad. It builds a wonderful foundation that the story as a whole makes masterful use of. Enjoy your time in FF14, stop and smell the flowers, meet others and have fun.
I feel ARR is overall fine when you take time to faff off everyone once in a while. Sometimes i would leave the empire to threaten the people of the land, cuz i have some mining to do. I mostly feel that the Scions feel a little flat in ARR, but the patch content does a good job fleshing them out, but i understand why its like that.
The free trial is crazy too, they just added SB to it, meaning you can access Eureka for free now, and that's wild.
As person originally only playing single player JRPGs, I didn't think ARR was boring or slow, I liked it. It takes it's time to set characters and world so rest of the story can hit you harder. I would compare it to Tales of Symphonia; it may seen predictable at the start, but if you just chill and let the story and characters do their thing, you find that you enjoy it. Maybe FFXIV is more difficult to adapt if you have more of a multiplayer/MMO background? I personally haven't really been able to try and get into any other MMOs properly, because they give you too many buttons at the start and just expect you to figure it out, instead of slowly giving you time to learn them one by one
People always make the mistake of comparing the story quality of ARR to the expansions, when they should compare them to other mmo's, since that's where new players will likely be coming from.
it's good, there's certainly a lot of world building, which some people might not have the patience for, but it's an important foundation for the rest of the game.
My Criminal Misconception about this game and the motive of why I did'nt wanted to play it after a long time because it was an MMORPG, after a lifetime in WOW (since vanilla, abandon ship in Shadowlands, i'm 39 btw), and a truly veteran in FF games, I thought this game was going to be utterly trash, my surprise was to see that this game is just another FF with some elements of MMORPG and the Story was on pair with the greatest games out there ,Heavensword and Shadowbringers were really game changer for me making FFXIV my fourth favorite game from all time for me (FFVII from psx, Mass Effect 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 my three favourites in that order)
I will say I started playing ARR around the time of late Shadowbringers. I enjoyed the story muself, getting wrapped up in the plot of ARR, I only started getting tired of it in the missions that were supposed to be patches before Heavensward came out. Let me be real, that is tedious. Except for the new characters that were introduced. But I was blasting through all of it, and when I got to the actual expansion content, I could feel the shift. From the first cutscene I was like "woah"
Youknow it is nice to see the gap between these two perspectives being changed lately. I used to think WoW was just the ''toxic redneck'' game as people made me believe, but i found someone who plays 14 and (mostly WoW) and her and her community are some of the nicest people ever. completely changed my outlook on the game, and even learned some stuff WoW has i wish 14 would implement. I can definitely see why people have such a fear of branching out of like ''western media only'' mindset, but once people do theres a whole other world and style of story telling and characters a lot of people really love that you just don't see done much in western media. Sometimes even the goofiest looking thing can have a story buried in it that can break you soul.