My First MMO: Tet's Eorzean Adventures [FFXIV]

[Obsidian Fire]

There's two main types of Skills in FFXIV: Global Cooldown Skills (GCDs) and Off-Global Cooldown Skills (oGCDs).

Global Cooldown Skills all share the same 2.5 sec CD and cannot be used while that Global Cooldown is counting down to zero. These are usually the skills that form the main part of a three button combo (for most classes) and you pretty much want to be using these all the time. Meele and Ranged Physical have GCDs that have no cast time; that is, they can move around and use the skills whenever. Magic classes have a cast time on these skills where they need to stand still for some time before the skill actually goes off. Usually skill cast time and the Global Cooldown have the same length, so this just means mages have to think a bit more about where they stand in fights and also where they can use the next set of skills optimally.

Off-Global Cooldown Skills have a whole bunch of different cooldowns that range from five seconds to five minutes, however, they do not share cooldowns with each other or the Global Cooldown. This means that while the Global Cooldown is counting down to zero, you can use oGCDs in that narrow 2.5 sec window of time. Skills like Dragoon's Jumps are designed like this as are most of the various short-term buffs different classes have. This adds another complexity to classes as not only do classes want the GCD skills to always be used, but they also want to fit in as many oGCD skills into a fight too. And because of the longer cooldowns on oGCD skills, they can't fit in as many uses. oGCD skills also don't interact with the GCD combo system in any way.

Generally, it's best to start out with trying to alternate one GCD skill with an oGCD skill so long as you have oGCD skills you should use. Most classes start out in ARR and HW with much fewer oGCDs than they'll get in StB and ShB, so it's good to get dowm the timing of how those work now. Most people think the ARR classes are super boring because there's not a lot to do with them... IE: they have very, very little oGCDs and a lot of people think the oGCDs are what make classes feel faster paced and more interesting. And set the different classes apart from each other.

 

[Tetsujin]

I just reached Idyllshire. I guess this is HW's version of Mor Dhona then. Look at all that fancy new gear that I don't have the tomestones for...

 

[Wol]

I just reached Idyllshire. I guess this is HW's version of Mor Dhona then. Look at all that fancy new gear that I don't have the tomestones for...

Psshhhh kskkkhhh sjkkoo

translation: Welcome to Goblinland

 

[ForceStealer]

It was so cool back when it was current and every patch built up Idyllshire a little more until what it is now

 

[Tetsujin]

That was a thing? I knew it was for Mor Dhona. Makes me sad I missed that stuff. It's weird when they talk about how this is a small settlement in the wilderness that needs support and rebuilding but when you get there now it's already shiny and fortified and bustling.

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah, here's a big video you can skip around in if you wanna see (the first minute and a half captures the change pretty well):

 

[Tetsujin]

So what's the pronunciation everyone's going with? Because I keep reading it as "iddle-shuh" but maybe it's "iddle-shy-uh" or "idle-shy-uh" or...idk

 

[ForceStealer]

I say "iddle-shy-er" because I'm a filthy American, but I imagine the British way would be most like the first one you wrote

 

[Lex]

Aye-dyll-shire is how I say it (the first part is just "Idyllic", the second is the shire from LOTR)

Or iddily-diddily-shire if I'm feeling comical (Joe came up with that one years ago while we were playing and I hear it in my head whenever I have to go there)

 

[ForceStealer]

Iddily diddily Shire and More Doughnuts. The endgame hubs of XIV

 

[Tetsujin]

Aye-dyll-shire is how I say it (the first part is just "Idyllic", the second is the shire from LOTR)

Or iddily-diddily-shire if I'm feeling comical (Joe came up with that one years ago while we were playing and I hear it in my head whenever I have to go there)

So uh. I'm on the lvl 60 MSQ "Heavensward". Seems like it's 3.0 final showdown time? Anyone wanna do this with me tomorrow night mayhap?

 

[ForceStealer]

I'm in. Have off tomorrow too, so time difference is no object

 

[Tetsujin]

More random screenshots and stuff

Spoiler

So first up, I did the Rising anniversary event quest a while back. It wasn't anything special but it did reveal the true identity of that wandering minstrel...

I knew it. I knew he reminded me of a certain legendary Japanese video game producer and director.

I gotta say, it's an honor to finally meet you, the one and only...








HIDEO KOJIMA!

...oh. Ahem. Of course. Um. How embarrassing of me.





...so uh, do you know Kojima though? Can you introduce me to him?

okay =<

More random stuff:

For a while there I went with a new look.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought this was a Nomura FF. My mistake, I'll go brood and look stylish somewhere else then.

Just a bunch of dragoons because they look cool:

Magical hour at Moghome:

Seeing Moghome on the map when I got to that area got me excited because YAY MOOGLES I hope these ones don't summon their king though

Lady Iceheart and relatable feelings:

One of those rare times when it's sunny in Coerthas:

On the subject of...interesting user names:

...come on man

I lol'd at this line:

I had to look up what "swiving" means. It's an archaic word for...fucking. Final Fantasy just dropped a stealth f-bomb.

So, Hilda is the hottest character in the game, don't @ me

She didn't have much of a role to play so far but I hope to see more of her

The Enterprise Excelsior during sunrise. Had to get a shot of that as sunlight is pretty rare in Ishgard. FFXIV is kinda like real life when it comes to taking pictures. Sometimes you really gotta wait for the right light.

Cid and his baby:

That one time I entered the Dravanian Forelands and it had the weather condition "royal levin". Apparently this is another FATE situation like Odin? It looked pretty atmospheric.

Y'Shtola in her new outfit! I was glad to see her back. Surprised that none of the other Scions have resurfaced yet since the end of 2.5...

Honestly, her old outfit always looked like she was just wearing a regular white sweater+blue jeans from afar and I always thought it was kinda funny. That staff is also a massive upgrade from that twig she was using before.

Top 10 phrases you did not to expect to read in FFXIV:

Next up they'll probably have me accept cookies

Just a cutscene snap, because the lighting looked kinda nice:

I do like the gear with capes (suck it, Edna!):

I wonder if anyone else is like me and still prefers the Chocobo mount over all the other weird and extravagant ones? I guess I'm in a half-RP mindset where I don't want to ride anything that doesn't make sense within the story.
So I guess it's fortunate that the story then drops the Midgardsormr mount on me:

The following shots were taken during the Dragoon job quest. Occasionally they'll just have a few enemy models as a sort of stage prop and the actual battle doesn't start until you enter an instance. Which of course is an opportunity to stage a few battle shots since you can't actually do that during actual combat.

In other news, I have dabbled in selling shit on the market board. Following advice I took from a random Youtube video I have bought loads of cheap red, yellow and purple materia and such and had Mutamix in Thanalan meld them. Occasionally you get a green or blue one and those sold for a ridiculous amount. Made a couple hundred-thousand gil profit on that one

I also went ahead and just bought that red panda minion of the market board since I'm swimming in money now

I also gave that Palace of the Dead a try after unlocking it months ago and forgetting about it. It's kind of interesting but I stopped after the first 10 floors because I got bored

Also, 3.0 is done now. Final battle against Knights of the Round was rad. I also wanna make final content being run with TLSers a tradition
Heavensward so far was pretty decent. The story wasn't mind-blowingly exciting or anything yet but it was engaging enough for me to not get bored. I can tolerate Alphinaud now as well. I kinda hated him at first because he had that spoiled-rich kid look with a spoiled-rich kid voice and a spoiled-rich kid name. You just wanna punch him.

It's neat how the main NPCs actually join you on your journey. It's almost like a proper Final Fantasy party. It never quite feels like it though because in the end you'll still do all the adventuring inbetween the cutscenes on your own and dungeons are done with player characters and they'll have to keep coming up with excuses to keep the story characters out of the trial and dungeon stuff. "Good job, <player name>, sure wish I could've joined you in this battle!"
Me too. Unfortunately I had to make do with Wilma Dickfit and Cuteness Fluffyborn over here.

And of course, the thing where you do trials with 8 people but the story treats it like the Warrior of Light did everything by themselves still persists. I do think this being an MMO and trying to also be a typical story-driven FF are a little bit at odds. I'm not sure if there is a better way to handle this either though.

Also, post-credits stuff:

Spoiler

...why the fuck are these guy on the MOON. WHat

Also, Warrior of Darkness, eh. JEEZ WHO COULD THAT BE OHH THE SUSPENSE-oh fuckin whatever it's Ardbert, the generic player character stand-in from the CG opening movies isn't it. You kinda get spoiled on those things when the anniversary event literally gives you a minion of this guy with the name attached to it, lol

Speaking of minion spoilers, I was perusing the FFXIV online store and there's this Y'Shtola one where she looks all gothed up and ready for a Nightwish concert or something and the German store calls it "splinter world Y'Shtola".
Fuckin...splinter world?? Did the store just drop a spoiler on me? Are there parallel worlds and timelines in this? Is this where Ardbert is from? Are the CG videos really just from a mirror universe where he is the main character? I'm just thinking out loud, don't confirm or deny any of this btw, no vague spoiling either
Eitherway it would be funny if I got spoiled on future plot developments by an online store and heccin minions

 

[Fade]

I say "iddle-shy-er" because I'm a filthy American, but I imagine the British way would be most like the first one you wrote

Professional Brit, here. My instinct is to read it idle-shuh/shr, depending on how local (i.e. rhotic) I'm feeling at that moment, accent-wise.

 

[ForceStealer]

So first up, I did the Rising anniversary event quest a while back. It wasn't anything special but it did reveal the true identity of that wandering minstrel...

I...knew nothing about this. Crazy.

Also, 3.0 is done now. Final battle against Knights of the Round was rad. I also wanna make final content being run with TLSers a tradition

Not as well framed as your shots, but here we are about to face the Ascians. Left to right is me, @AvecAloes , @Lex , and @Tetsujin

It's neat how the main NPCs actually join you on your journey. It's almost like a proper Final Fantasy party. It never quite feels like it though because in the end you'll still do all the adventuring inbetween the cutscenes on your own and dungeons are done with player characters and they'll have to keep coming up with excuses to keep the story characters out of the trial and dungeon stuff. "Good job, <player name>, sure wish I could've joined you in this battle!"

This is something they get better and better about as the game progresses. Duties involving them become more commonplace through Stormblood, and finally Shadowbringers where they properly feel like full-fledged FF party members. It's great. Complete with

Spoiler: this is a gameplay spoiler that I can't imagine you would mind knowing and you might know it already, but I'll tag it anyway just in case

being able to bring them into dungeons with you as AI party members and they will comment on happenings as you go. Which I very happily did for my first run-through of every ShB dungeon.

And of course, the thing where you do trials with 8 people but the story treats it like the Warrior of Light did everything by themselves still persists. I do think this being an MMO and trying to also be a typical story-driven FF are a little bit at odds. I'm not sure if there is a better way to handle this either though.

This is also something that's always a bit difficult but also is improved with the story finding explanations for the other people with you and then the final battle of Shadowbringers integrated it so well and just blew me away.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Goth Y'shtola was one of the main CGI renders for Shadowbringers. As was Gunbreaker Thancred. Keep playing the HW quests to find out what Arbert and Co. are up to.

The game has gotten better and better at having AI members for MSQ content. I know the dev team has talked about expanding the ShB system to the other dungeons needed for the MSQ. I could never see them doing AI for trials though, as those are 8-man and much more complicated. 8-man trials are also supposed to be there for all the people who do like that FFXIV is an MMO and the hardest content in the game are specific 8-man trials.

 

[Tetsujin]

Also, I forgot to mention a thing about the 3.0 final dungeon which I thought was interesting, which is Lahabrea and Igeyorhm doing a fusion dance and turning into "Ascian Prime" because it's literally the 1.0 design:

Whatever Ascians were supposed to be in 1.0 is clearly very different from the Org. XIII rejects we have right now but I guess this is how they resolved that discrepancy.

So, Alexander raids. The story isn't as interesting and lore-important as Bahamut but it's still pretty enjoyable. To think a bunch of gobbies are now in charge of the biggest primal outside of Bahamut is pretty funny and also hurts my braincase

Having a TLS party at my side for these things is always good fun

Spoiler: Screencaps as usual

Force and myself at the core:

The fights were pretty fun and the music is a bop. There were a bunch of mechanics where I didn't know what the heck was going, like people turning into gorillas and players being put in cages and shit but I somehow managed to survive

We also speedran some dungeons and Extreme trials unsynced so I could clear my backlog of accepted quests finally. Every now and then I even got a hit in before the lvl 80s just steamrolled everything

One of the bosses was dead before I finished watching the intro cutscene

Also, Wanderer's Palace with all the Tonberrys <3
The Hard version has you help them out and there was one with a scholar's hat and glasses and idk why I didn't take a picture but it was adorbs
I did take this picture from the end of the dungeon though

Tonberry frens 11/10

Oh btw, the puns in this game. Some of them make me chuckle. However, a lot of them are terrible and the writer should feel terrible.
I think this is the worst I've come across. A pun this bad should be considered a crime.

...

Spoiler: Rambling about my outfit

So I've equipped myself with the HW endgame gear aka the Shire gear.

...nonono! This is not the Shire you're looking for! Move along, move along!
...wait, are you an Ascian Prime, too?

Anyway, it's pretty snazzy looking. Has a bit of a military officer vibe or something.

Much prefer it over the Magitek Ironworks stuff from ARR which felt a bit...too much.
That being said, I quite like the Iga ninja set from the lvl 60 job quests as well. Lucky for me, combining them works pretty well imo!
I like how the ninja chestpiece is kind of traditional (also, love me a good scarf) but the Shire gloves and boots kinda have a bit of a modern, tactical look almost.

I actually want those boots irl:

Also got myself this weird visor thing in exchange for those Alexander loot parts. It's useless as gear but works nicely as glamour. Reminds me of Nier: Automata (nevermind the fact that Nier Automata gear is also a thing but it's in Shadowbringers which is so far awaaaaay like I'm really interested in that Nier raid in general because Automata is fantastic

With the 3.0 story done it's time for more...

Spoiler: Mother. Fuckin. HILDIBRAND

I like how Godbert starts out in a wintercoat but then...somehow wears progessively less and less throughout that first quest for absolutely no reason, lol

Some photo mode shenanigans:
"You two got any idea wtf is going on with this man? No? k."

Caught in a snowball fight:

So, Hildibrand decides to adopt this weird Vivi Gigi mammet he found...

Gigi is not content with being just a mammet and wants Godbert to make him into a real boy.
So Godbert works his magic and...

...HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK HAVE YOU DONE

I'M SIMULTANEOUSLY HOWLING AND WHEEZING BUT ALSO SHITTING MY PANTS BECAUSE BODYBUILDER VIVI IS A TERRIFYING IMAGE THAT WILL HAUNT ME IN MY NIGHTMARES

Whoever wrote these Hildibrand quests is a mad comedic genius they're so fucking stupid in the best way

^that sums it all up now doesn't it

"There, there. You get used to this bullshit."

Spoiler: Plot stuff

I continued the main story up until the end of 3.1 and I did not expect this guy to show up so soon:

It's CG movie man and his CG movie party! Doing quests and having the echo and slaying primals and...

Their introduction was pretty badass. One of those rare cutscenes that are actually dynamic and fun to watch.
Also, Thancred is back! And just like Y'shtola, he's got a makeover.

...oh no, he's hot

That's pretty much it for now, still got the third and final part of the Alexander raids to do. Unlocked the 24-man raid for HW as well. Wonder what kind of glorious chaos awaits me in that one.

Meanwhile I also got my Grand Company squad up to rank 3 so I got promoted to First Lieutenant. There doesn't seem to be any point in this outside of being able to buy more stuff at the GC which for the most part I don't even care for but idk, I just like seeing numbers go up, it's a pavlovian thing probably

I've also been frequently sending my retainer on ventures and leveling him up. Not sure what's the benefit of this yet, maybe he'll eventually bring back something that's worth a damn? idk

 

[Theozilla]

Also, I forgot to mention a thing about the 3.0 final dungeon which I thought was interesting, which is Lahabrea and Igeyorhm doing a fusion dance and turning into "Ascian Prime" because it's literally the 1.0 design:

Whatever Ascians were supposed to be in 1.0 is clearly very different from the Org. XIII rejects we have right now but I guess this is how they resolved that discrepancy.

So, Alexander raids. The story isn't as interesting and lore-important as Bahamut but it's still pretty enjoyable. To think a bunch of gobbies are now in charge of the biggest primal outside of Bahamut is pretty funny and also hurts my braincase

Having a TLS party at my side for these things is always good fun

Spoiler: Screencaps as usual

Force and myself at the core:

The fights were pretty fun and the music is a bop. There were a bunch of mechanics where I didn't know what the heck was going, like people turning into gorillas and players being put in cages and shit but I somehow managed to survive

We also speedran some dungeons and Extreme trials unsynced so I could clear my backlog of accepted quests finally. Every now and then I even got a hit in before the lvl 80s just steamrolled everything

One of the bosses was dead before I finished watching the intro cutscene

Also, Wanderer's Palace with all the Tonberrys <3
The Hard version has you help them out and there was one with a scholar's hat and glasses and idk why I didn't take a picture but it was adorbs
I did take this picture from the end of the dungeon though

Tonberry frens 11/10

Oh btw, the puns in this game. Some of them make me chuckle. However, a lot of them are terrible and the writer should feel terrible.
I think this is the worst I've come across. A pun this bad should be considered a crime.

...

Spoiler: Rambling about my outfit

So I've equipped myself with the HW endgame gear aka the Shire gear.

...nonono! This is not the Shire you're looking for! Move along, move along!
...wait, are you an Ascian Prime, too?

Anyway, it's pretty snazzy looking. Has a bit of a military officer vibe or something.

Much prefer it over the Magitek Ironworks stuff from ARR which felt a bit...too much.
That being said, I quite like the Iga ninja set from the lvl 60 job quests as well. Lucky for me, combining them works pretty well imo!
I like how the ninja chestpiece is kind of traditional (also, love me a good scarf) but the Shire gloves and boots kinda have a bit of a modern, tactical look almost.

I actually want those boots irl:

Also got myself this weird visor thing in exchange for those Alexander loot parts. It's useless as gear but works nicely as glamour. Reminds me of Nier: Automata (nevermind the fact that Nier Automata gear is also a thing but it's in Shadowbringers which is so far awaaaaay like I'm really interested in that Nier raid in general because Automata is fantastic

With the 3.0 story done it's time for more...

Spoiler: Mother. Fuckin. HILDIBRAND

I like how Godbert starts out in a wintercoat but then...somehow wears progessively less and less throughout that first quest for absolutely no reason, lol

Some photo mode shenanigans:
"You two got any idea wtf is going on with this man? No? k."

Caught in a snowball fight:

So, Hildibrand decides to adopt this weird Vivi Gigi mammet he found...

Gigi is not content with being just a mammet and wants Godbert to make him into a real boy.
So Godbert works his magic and...

...HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK HAVE YOU DONE

I'M SIMULTANEOUSLY HOWLING AND WHEEZING BUT ALSO SHITTING MY PANTS BECAUSE BODYBUILDER VIVI IS A TERRIFYING IMAGE THAT WILL HAUNT ME IN MY NIGHTMARES

Whoever wrote these Hildibrand quests is a mad comedic genius they're so fucking stupid in the best way

^that sums it all up now doesn't it

"There, there. You get used to this bullshit."

Spoiler: Plot stuff

I continued the main story up until the end of 3.1 and I did not expect this guy to show up so soon:

It's CG movie man and his CG movie party! Doing quests and having the echo and slaying primals and...

Their introduction was pretty badass. One of those rare cutscenes that are actually dynamic and fun to watch.
Also, Thancred is back! And just like Y'shtola, he's got a makeover.

...oh no, he's hot

That's pretty much it for now, still got the third and final part of the Alexander raids to do. Unlocked the 24-man raid for HW as well. Wonder what kind of glorious chaos awaits me in that one.

Meanwhile I also got my Grand Company squad up to rank 3 so I got promoted to First Lieutenant. There doesn't seem to be any point in this outside of being able to buy more stuff at the GC which for the most part I don't even care for but idk, I just like seeing numbers go up, it's a pavlovian thing probably

I've also been frequently sending my retainer on ventures and leveling him up. Not sure what's the benefit of this yet, maybe he'll eventually bring back something that's worth a damn? idk

Have you started the Warring Triad sidequest trials yet or the Heavensward 24 main raids yet?

 

[Tetsujin]

No, haven't done those yet, only unlocked.

 

[Lex]

I'm off work for the next few days Tets if you want to party up

Just ping me on Discord.

 

[Tetsujin]

Let's continue the questing tomorrow then

 

[Tetsujin]

I'm just gonna dump more photomode stuff

Here's a style I like to call "Batman shots"

Spoiler: I AM THE NIGHT

Spoiler: references and stuff

That smells like a Monkey Island reference and I love me a good Monkey Island reference.

...they actually went and referenced that infamous Kojima tweet, LOL

Spoiler: Stuff and things

Choosing a color scheme for my dragoon outfit, like

So that one time I just wanted to take a shot of the environment after beating a dungeon and everyone else left the instance but FFXIV's photo mode does the thing where your character repeats the last action you performed and I just happened to kill the boss with a lvl.2 limit break. You can't use limit breaks outside of dungeons so of course that means it's a rare photo opportunity that presented itself here!

I'm rather happy with this shot. The lighting in that dungeon is really nice, haha

In other news, I stumbled upon the Void Ark flying around the Churning Mists. I didn't know you could actually see it out in the open world.

The Void Ark itself if I understand correctly is an airship powered by the souls of demons that can teleport by tearing a hole through the fabric of space and flying through some kind of hell dimension or something.
It's...pretty metal.

I also finished 5.3. The buildup to the final battle with Nidhogg was really neat with Dragonsong playing in the background. Can't go wrong with Susan Calloway for maximum dramatic effect. =P

"I challenge thee, o great um...scaley, wyrmy one!!"

I died a few times but at least I could recognize this time it wasn't actually my fault. The main problem here seemed to be people not being familiar with stack markers. That one person ran away from everyone when they got targeted with it. I was chasing after them to stack up but nobody else did, lol
The resulting attack killed most of us.
Next time, people wised up and stacked up inside the marker...but waited only until the first blast was over to disperse again. The attack goes on for a bit longer though and once again killed a good few people ^^"

It was a bit messy but the battle was won in the end.

After this almost 2-month long binge of XIV I think I'm starting to experience burnout though haha
I think I'll try to finish the remaining alliance raids and the two patches of Heavensward soon and then let my time expire and take another break and play something else. The initial plan was to subscribe for an additional month leading up to the PS5 release but looks like I'm already getting a bit tired, as much as I wanna know how the story continues.

 

[Lex]

So that one time I just wanted to take a shot of the environment after beating a dungeon and everyone else left the instance but FFXIV's photo mode does the thing where your character repeats the last action you performed and I just happened to kill the boss with a lvl.2 limit break. You can't use limit breaks outside of dungeons so of course that means it's a rare photo opportunity that presented itself here!

I've done the exact same thing previously:





Always been rather proud of those lmao

https://imgur.com/tkd1s7h

 

[Tetsujin]

That feeling when you're a night owl and your story progress is once again blocked by a dungeon or trial where the queues take forever because it's past 3am in Europe D:
Weird thing is they make me do Titan (Hard) again. Like, that dude was already mandatory in 2.x, wasn't he?
Anyway, figured I might try and solo him but once you get to the heart phase his Granite Gaol just fucks me up.
One thing I figured is putting down Doton just before so it does damage over time to the gaol but it's not enough unfortunately.

 

[Tetsujin]

I haven't been updating this thread in a while, mostly due to me barely playing the past week
Been logging in every now and then but only for a short period. The burnout is real. I've instead been replaying Spider-Man
Heavensward has since been finished and maybe at some point I'll get around on posting my detailed thoughts about it.

tl,dr version: It was alright. Much better than ARR although I personally don't quite get the "best FF ever!!" praise from some people yet. I've read so much praise for HW that I think my expectations were way too high because even though it was decent, I was slightly let down when it was "just good" instead of "OMG MAGICAL EXPERIENCE"

Oh, and I've unlocked the Firmament. So this is that Ishgardian Restoration thing I've heard about. Someone inform me what the goal of this is. It kinda reminds me of a housing district? Is this what's gonna happen when it's done?

Anyway, only 1 day left on my current sub. Maybe I'll do the remaining two alliance raids today if someone wants to join?
If not, I guess next time I'll be playing this again will be on PS5 in maybe December