I cleared Shiva savage last night. The clear video is being uploaded by one of my raid team so you can hear everyone screaming (and me going "...Jesus") shortly, but I wanted to call attention to the new Shiva theme because I remember when 2.4 or whatever released we had a chat about the Shiva theme and @Shademp didn't like it XD
WELL MAYBE YOU'LL LIKE THIS ONE!?!?!?
I particularly like 2:08 onwards, I've been progging the fight for a few weeks and I never got tired of it. That's a big deal XD
Bits from 1:45 - 2:45 do appeal to me. But it's just a fact that FFXIV themes are very hit and miss with me. Also suspect that I'm a difficult flirt with FFXIV's boss themes because I still associate Final Fantasy music with the more oldschool style. Take for example the Alexander boss theme: On first listen I was all like "WTF IS THIS WHAT IS THIS DOING IN A FINAL FANTASY GAME" but then I became addicted to the theme for a while.
Same story actually with Otherworld from FFX, even though it's technically from an "oldschool" period. I can never stop feeling like the theme is out of place, but repeated listens did build appreciation.
Anyway, I do not desire to be a downer. Happy that FFXIV keeps pumping out new boss themes and that they dare experiment. *thumbs up*
I want to just come in here to say how much I absolutely adored the start to the Resistance Weapon plot. It's got a ton of really cool lore, both brand new and fleshed-out old stuff; it's also not as front-loaded with exposition as Return to Ivalice was (and that was before time crunch made that story basically incomprehensible), so it really feels like Matsuno is pacing himself a bit better this time.
Also, the music! Nobody seems to have uploaded the music from the new instanced zone yet; I'm not sure if that's a new composition or a remix, but it's pretty cool stuff. I'm also very, VERY happy that they finally used Land Long Dead in an appropriate context - a remix of Penitus used in a dungeon with only the most tangential connections to Garlemald or Gaius always felt off to me, but for an instance in Bozja? Hell yes.
(Hey guys nice to meet you I'm an enormous FFXIV fan and lore nerd)
I just listened to the music of the new area tied to the currect relics, Soken is a beast and never seize to surprise me despite already knowing his signature style.
Its been 2 years since I've last played, because my current time and budget doesnt allow it, and I miss this world so much it hurts.
New 24-man raid is "The Puppets' Bunker"... Neir fans probably have some idea about what that is....
ARR MSQ is getting 13% of it's quests removed. They had to keep most of the quests because of recurring NPCs, but they reduced the number of steps needed to do the quests. Doing the Crystal Tower Raids is now mandatory to finish the ARR MSQ.
ARR areas are getting flying!!!!! After beating Ultima Weapon (2.0 scenario)
Some good little tidbits! Shame it may be delayed, but it is what it is.
I'm still unsure of the direction we're heading in vis-a-vis Elidibus' plans, but given the key art and the fact that they're outright making the Crystal Tower questline outright mandatory, I have a feeling we're losing the Crystal Exarch in some capacity this patch.
The dungeon is intriguing. They played pretty coy with the location, and considering that and the name The Hero's Gauntlet, my guess is that it will transition through various settings throughout. No clue who the big Trial might be against, though - Elidibus feels like too obvious an answer.
I have very little familiarity with Nier, but I'd like this raid to tie into the lore of XIV a bit more directly than the first. The first one was more removed than even the first couple Omega tiers (albeit a bit better executed), and I much prefer it when elements from other games are woven into the fabric of this game (Crystal Tower, Ivalice, etc). I don't like it when major raid stories feel like a promotional crossover event. Then again, I understand that cross dimensional stuff is Nier's bread and butter, so I might be out of luck here. I'm hyped for the actual raid - Alliance Raids are some of my favourite content in the game, and the last four have absolutely hit it out of the park in terms of gameplay.
Not much to say here - a solo instance quest on the .3 patch is pretty par for the course by now. What I assume is Sapphire Weapon looks rad, like something out of a Kojima game.
This is the biggest question mark and the most interesting thing about the patch. Certainly, it's a good idea to give a few different ways to go about getting it, but I hope they balance the methods well. If whatever they're planning for New Eureka is significantly more involved than the approach that doesn't involve it, it'll remove the incentive to try the new content, which would be a shame.
I also hope the effort on either side reflects the power of the weapon. The worst thing about the Eureka weapon - aside from the absurd RNG involved in the Pyros step - was how long it took to get despite being weaker than a tome weapon. Either make it like Heavensward and have each step be comparable/slightly better than tome and upgraded tome, or if it's weaker make acquiring it easier so that it’s an attractive alternative. When you can get a better weapon for far less effort, it kinda takes away from how special the relic is. Personally, I liked the HW approach best.
Obviously, the first step of this one was weaker but easy to achieve, but that seemed to have just been because it was so late. I'll be very curious to see what track they follow going forward.
The revamp will be nice - and it seems like they're thinking carefully about how to approach axing quests, which is good. Flying in ARR zones is cool too, although I think it's a shame they aren't doing aether currents, which I've always liked as a means of encouraging exploration.
The reverse level sync is a really cool idea, since syncing down always has its caveats. I would like it if they also built up on ilvl sync of older content too; right now, we basically have to choose between "total faceroll" (regular level sync) or "absurdly punishing" (minimum ilvl) for old endgame dungeons and normal / alliance raids, so the option to set your own party's ilvl would be really nice while also allowing people to faceroll through queue (I have a feeling the community would flip its shit if they made anything less than that the default).
Interestingly, Yoshida and Foxclon actually running Labyrinth of the Ancients and Syrcus Tower at min ilvl exemplified this point well: nobody knows the mechanics because it's usually so faceroll. That might seems like it doesn't matter - why does it matter if people know mechanics if the mechanics don't matter? - but it does have two trickle-down effects: the first is that some base-line level of mechanical competency is still required to clear these even at their easiest, so if enough people only know how to hit the boss, you can still get wipefest parties. But more importantly, it means that they don't learn proper gameplay as they go. I also think it's a lot less fun to just plow through content with minimal engagement, but that's just me.
Something I was looking forward to hearing about which wasn't addressed: reportedly, there will be no Deep Dungeon this expansion because of some new sort of content. Given that the Deep Dungeons have typically dropped around the .3 patches, I was hoping they would talk a bit more about this, but nothing really came up.
Cross dimensional stuff is NieR's (and Drakenguard's) bread and butter for what starts a given story-line off. NeiR litterally starts when the dragon and goddess from Drakenguard 1 fall into modern-day Tokyo somehow and proceed to beat the crap out of each other over it before getting shot down by the military. Which releases the "magic element" into a world not equiped to handle it and everything quickly starts going haywire.
The Bunker in NeiR: A is the main base of the YorHa androids and was in orbit around earth. It and everyone in it got infected with a logic virus and i was thought to have self-destructed. To see the crashed remains here is... very worrying.
Relics will never be BiS in the patch they are released in ever again. In HW, they were BiS when they first were released, but that resulted in people not doing the 8-man Raids for the tomestone or raid weapons becuase the 8-man raids were so hard (those were the days of Gordias and Midas). Ever since then, Relics have been sloted in as the "BiS-1" weapons until the x.55 patch when they become BiS.
It should be noted that they are still "BiS-1" weapons even now. They are better then the crafted weapons and just 5 ilvls below the BiS tomestone weapons. So they are still great weapons to get for all the other classes that aren't your main class. Or if you're not into doing raiding. Then they're really nice.
One thing the dev team has noted about Eureka was that it was supposed to be a very hard exploratory-type content that wasn't for everyone in the first place. And then they put the relic in it which has traditionally always been a casual grind. They said going into ShB that they realized that was a mis-match of systems and were split on how to tie in the relic to exploratory content going forward. They've since said that the relic will not have to be done in the Eureka-style content (even though it can be done in there) because one of the biggest pieces of feedback they got about Eureka was wanting a way to get the relic weapon without having to stay in Eureka just to get it.
This is also a "Part 1" Live Letter. Those usually give people a basic idea of what is going on in the next patch. The "Part 2" Live Letters go into a lot more detail and usually happen a week or two before a patch.
Relics will never be BiS in the patch they are released in ever again. In HW, they were BiS when they first were released, but that resulted in people not doing the 8-man Raids for the tomestone or raid weapons becuase the 8-man raids were so hard (those were the days of Gordias and Midas). Ever since then, Relics have been sloted in as the "BiS-1" weapons until the x.55 patch when they become BiS.
Interesting - while I've seen them address the problems with the SB approach, I've never heard them say that the Anima quest interrupted the endgame foundation in HW. In fact, in my experience, people still did all that other stuff and more because of all the various currencies that you could acquire Anima materials with: Tomestones of all kinds, Alexander materials, Beast Tribe currencies (in fact, it's what drove me to actually go do all the Beast Tribe stuff), etc. Meanwhile, you still had to get body gear the usual way, so roulettes, Mhach, and Alexander (which on its normal difficulty was definitely not that difficult - and was actually probably less difficult than many of the current Eden raids) were still run quite a lot.
I agree that the writing is on the wall and they'll probably be second/third tier weapons from now on, but I think that's a huge shame - some early issues with grind balance aside, the Anima were very well-conceived, and I'd love to be able to get a tome-comparable weapon through a mix of unique instances and my usual activities.
It should be noted that they are still "BiS-1" weapons even now. They are better then the crafted weapons and just 5 ilvls below the BiS tomestone weapons. So they are still great weapons to get for all the other classes that aren't your main class. Or if you're not into doing raiding. Then they're really nice.
That sort of defeats the purpose, at least to me. Should the Super Special Unique Job Weapon built over the course of quests spanning an expansion (well, half an expansion now) NOT be something that you want for your main Job? I love the look of the current Monk one, and it would be nice if it were good for something other than glamour.
This is also a "Part 1" Live Letter. Those usually give people a basic idea of what is going on in the next patch. The "Part 2" Live Letters go into a lot more detail and usually happen a week or two before a patch.
It was only with the later parts of the Anima quest where there was lots of ways to do the Anima weapons. The very first Anima weapons were seen as being too OP because Gordias (Savage) was closer to an Ultimate fight then a Savage fight (Midas was even more that way). It's... interesting looking up how raiding was back in the early HW days and how long it took for the 4th Savage fights to be beaten. So even though the first Anima Weapons took a lot of grinding to get (pre-nerfs) it didn't take as long to get as it took to clear the raids.
Raiding back in Gordias/Midas is considered to have been a bad thing for the community as a whole, because the raiding scene litterally ran out of poeple who were interested in raiding at that time. The raiding scene didn't really recover until Creator when the Savage fights got easier. Omega was the first raid series that could probably be considered approachable by most players over the course of an entire expansion.
It was for me too. Little by little it all sinks in though, just play and have fun discovering and making mistakes, and if you have any questions, please ask.
Feel free to hit me up on what you guys should focus on (either here or on the Discord). Or on Cerberus if you play there! I've been playing continuously since 3.2 and can at least help narrow down the stuff you should focus on early vs the stuff you can leave until later.
As a general rule though....
1) Do the MSQ... it gives you tons of Exp and often gives you gear equips. It also unlocks new zones and new cities and a lot of other important stuff.
2) Quests with blue markers unlock something, whether that be a dungeon or other feature.
3) I recommend starting out as a DPS if you've never tanked/healed in an MMO before. DPS just have so much less to worry about while learning how the combat system works then tanks/healers.
4) Until you get to oh... Lvl 50ish (really more like lvl 60 now), a lot of classes are going to feel like they have very slow bare-bones combat systems... mainly because a lot of the skills the really give the classes their feel haven't been learned yet. They get a lot faster and more complex the higher level they are.
First thing I needed to figure out was how to reduce the UI clutter.
I'd be afraid of burn-in if I were to play this game for hundreds of hours like they want me to (OLED tv here)
Anyway, the game gave me the option to make a goth catgirl waifu character so you better believe I made a goth catgirl waifu character. I'm not sorry
Chose Gladiator because I thought I might as well start with a simple old-fashioned sword instead of something fancy.
First thing I needed to figure out was how to reduce the UI clutter.
I'd be afraid of burn-in if I were to play this game for hundreds of hours like they want me to (OLED tv here)
Anyway, the game gave me the option to make a goth catgirl waifu character so you better believe I made a goth catgirl waifu character. I'm not sorry
Chose Gladiator because I thought I might as well start with a simple old-fashioned sword instead of something fancy.
Given that a number of us play, it might be useful to see where people are at, server-wise. For newer people: you can play with anyone on any server that's in your Data Center, which are these Japanese, North American, and European groups. I'm on Excalibur server, so if anyone else is on a server in the Primal group, hit up Ryuji Hinoto!
Some advice I'd like to add: @Obsidian Fire is right, follow the main story, but don't neglect your class quests every 5 levels either (these are really important for certain abilities!). As you adventure around, complete your Hunting Log too - this, plus the EXP from the story, should do a good job at keeping you ahead of the main story's level requirements for a while. I've listed a few ways to get EXP aside from the Main Story and Hunting Log below for when those aren't enough.
As you might have noticed, there are 50 billion side quests. As Obsidian said, the game does an okay job at orienting new players by giving quests that unlock stuff a big purple + icon. The other quests are mostly for EXP, but some have some neat stuff (and conversely, you may or may not care about what a purple one gives you), so I've always found this list here super handy. The things I typically recommend to newcomers are:
Levequests (lv10) - Short missions for extra exp.
Glamours, Dyes, Aesthetician (lv 15) - this is all stuff that lets you tweak the appearance of your character. Glamours let you change the appearance of gear; dyes let you change the colour of dyeable gear; the aesthetician lets you freely change your hairstyle.
Challenge Log (lv 15) - Unlocks a set of weekly achievements that give good EXP bonuses
Hall of the Novice (lv15) - this is a crash course on group play for the role you have. It also awards really good gear - better than anything for the next 15 levels!
Chocobo Mount (lv20) - Your very own chocobo. A Final Fantasy must, of course, but this leads to...
Chocobo Companion and Chocobo Raising (lv30) - ...an actual battle companion! You can name your chocobo and level it up, using a talent tree to give it a role (Tank, Healer, DPS) to complement what you play as.
Any optional dungeons unlocked through sidequests - Many dungeons are part of the story, but several aren't.
Eventually, you may get level locked (this tends to happen in the 30s-40s and up). Luckily, there are a ton of ways to get EXP in the game:
-FATES: recurring combat events on the overworld. This is really the only time killing monsters will give worthwhile EXP.
-Leve Quests - see above.
-Once you've done more than once dungeon (the second one is at lv16), you unlock the Leveling Roulette, which gives a massive daily EXP bonus for doing a random dungeon (on top of whatever you get from the dungeon itself).
-Speaking of dungeons, the dungeon closest to your level will give you good enough experience to warrant running on its own, even without the roulette bonus.
-Finally, Beast Tribe Quests. You can unlock the first set (Kobolds for battle classes, Ixal for crafting) at level 41, and can unlock the various others at 42 (Sylphs), 43 (Amalj'aa), and 44 (Sahagin). You get 12 quests per day and they rank up with a fun storyline and stuff, but they ALSO give pretty solid EXP per quest.
Anyways, welcome! And remember: there's no rush to endgame. The game heavily incentivizes re-running old content, so very little "dies". Go at whatever pace suits you best.
From Thursday, May 28, 2020 at 1:00 a.m. to Monday, June 22, 2020 at 7:59 a.m. (PDT) How to Participate
Remumu, a reporter for the Harbor Herald is hot on the heels of her latest story, but needs the help of a brave adventurer to ensure her safety while investigating.
* Please note that seasonal quests cannot be completed after the event has concluded.
* This event is identical to the one previously held. Completed quests cannot be undertaken a second time.
Watched NoClip's documentary on the development of the original FFXIV and the whole process leading up to ARR.
Really puts into perspective just how drastic an overhaul it was. Not even just in terms of development, but the whole corporate culture was badly shook by how much 1.0 damaged the brand.
Also, fucking hell the work culture seems insane. Yoshida mentions very casually that he only sleeps four hours a night and there's a lot of anecdotes about developers basically living in the offices.
Still, the end result is very impressive considering how borked 1.0 seemed to be. Also just super fascinating to see behind the curtain a bit. Square are so open when it comes to XIV compared to pretty much everything else they do, it's an odd disconnect. Watching it felt a bit like sneaking into a parent's private office and rummaging around
But if something new was coming, they'd surely at least have hinted at it.
