The Final Fantasy XIV Thread [Dawntrail - 7.00]

[Lex]

Dat midgardsormr 0_0

I've cleared everything aside from coil tbh. I did T6 about a year and a half ago then went in on one T6 group immediately after it, since then I haven't touched it. I resolved to get my zeta before doing T9-13 so I've just kind of left it since then. I'm still going to do T6-8 though for completion purposes.

I'm stoopid I know, I've left second coil far too late. I come overprepared for fights though, I hate it when people just waltz in with no clue what they're doing. I tend to learn mechanics super quick so if something's been out for a while I'll watch a vid, make sure I'm at least 20 above the requested iLvl then fire in. I'd rather be cutting edge and learn the mechanics with a static but I don't have that option right now

 

[Geostigma]

I come overprepared for fights though, I hate it when people just waltz in with no clue what they're doing. I tend to learn mechanics super quick so if something's been out for a while I'll watch a vid

Not a bad thing at all. When I raided in past MMO's it was pretty bad form to go into raids during progression uninformed if there was videos or information easily available online etc.


So I tried out the controller for a day, and I gotta say its pretty neat how easy SE made it to transition and how fluid it was. Really had no issues making the swap, I still would rather use KBAM but the work SE did is honestly top tier here.

Up till FF14 the "big 3" when it came to KBAM just completely out classing controller in regards to game genre were always FPS, RTS(MOBA) and MMORPG's that used extended bars. I gotta say I think it's safe to say SE knocked MMO's off that list this stuff is pretty nifty.

 

[Lex]

Not a bad thing at all. When I raided in past MMO's it was pretty bad form to go into raids during progression uninformed if there was videos or information easily available online etc.

Yes, but the net result is that I spend so long gearing I come late to content

It's like... because coil is the top thing, I gear myself up to absolute max before doing it. The trouble is, T6-9 were the "top thing" when the max gear was i110/i115, which I had at the time, I just took a break and after I came back T10-13 were out and the top gear was i130/i135 XD. So disproportionately now I've got all the i130 gear and haven't done second coil yet.

Now that I think about it, I'm sure I cleared T6 and T7 but I'll need to check titles to be sure.

So I tried out the controller for a day, and I gotta say its pretty neat how easy SE made it to transition and how fluid it was. Really had no issues making the swap, I still would rather use KBAM but the work SE did is honestly top tier here.

Up till FF14 the "big 3" when it came to KBAM just completely out classing controller in regards to game genre were always FPS, RTS(MOBA) and MMORPG's that used extended bars. I gotta say I think it's safe to say SE knocked MMO's off that list this stuff is pretty nifty.

Hopefully you can see how some people like using controller now then . Conversely I spent time between farms yesterday playing with KBAM hotkeys and bars

I think I'll be able to make it work if I use the mouse exclusively for movement. Is there a way to map specific actions to keys? So I'd probably go 1-7, Q-Y, A-G and Z-B. I do not enjoy having to do jiggery hackery with the likes of input mapper to get something functioning the way I want it to. Alternatively if I'm stuck with these hotbars, I'd rather use Tab+Numbers instead of control, since tab to switch targets is utterly utterly useless (d-pad on controller is indeed miles better). Haven't figured out the in-game option to choose a "higher function" key yet though.

 

[Miscreant]

Yeah I would say if you are playing Monk, using a controller is the way to go, it's just so much better for mashing those combos. I've been trying to learn KB+M on my Scholar alt for the last few weeks, coming from a controller it's incredibly hard.


Well at the moment I've been teaching a lot of guys who have just returned after clearing second coil turns 10-11. We can go do some second coil later before I raid if you want.

In regards to gearing up for Coil, I wouldn't worry about it too much a lot of it has been nerfed pretty hard now, the only thing you really need is 6000hp and an i125+ weapon for T13.

 

[Geostigma]

I think I'll be able to make it work if I use the mouse exclusively for movement. Is there a way to map specific actions to keys? So I'd probably go 1-7, Q-Y, A-G and Z-B. I do not enjoy having to do jiggery hackery with the likes of input mapper to get something functioning the way I want it to. Alternatively if I'm stuck with these hotbars, I'd rather use Tab+Numbers instead of control, since tab to switch targets is utterly utterly useless (d-pad on controller is indeed miles better). Haven't figured out the in-game option to choose a "higher function" key yet though.

Yeah I really don't understand why they base the targeting off the character direction rather than a combination of camera direction and monster agro like other games. It's really jarring to go from having really great tab targeting in other games to FF14's system which I've never seen in other games lol. Thank god i can just click the monster but it shouldn't be my default option in most cases xD

About binding. What do you mean specific actions specifically?

Do you just mean spells on a certain bar and stuff? Hit escape , select keybinding and scroll to the hot bar you want to edit and swap out its original bind for which ever key or key combo you prefer. If you mean something else my bad lol, half awake here and don't have the presence of mind to consider other interpretations xD

As far as I can tell FF14 only allows you to use Shift/Control+key for combo presses unfortunately (so no caps+1 or tab+1 for instance)

Control+Key has always been bad for me for the most part but Shift+key isn't so bad at all. The key is a little wider in most cases and the placement makes it less of a stretch to press for a pinky or other finger in addition to the number or alphabet key you are gunning for.

 

[Lex]

Well at the moment I've been teaching a lot of guys who have just returned after clearing second coil turns 10-11. We can go do some second coil later before I raid if you want.

In regards to gearing up for Coil, I wouldn't worry about it too much a lot of it has been nerfed pretty hard now, the only thing you really need is 6000hp and an i125+ weapon for T13.

I'm already geared enough for it then. I just need to do T6-9 before I join a static for the 5 minutes that are left before Heavensward. I'm sorry I didn't see this post prior to seeing you in-game earlier or I'd have done coil XD.

Yeah I really don't understand why they base the targeting off the character direction rather than a combination of camera direction and monster agro like other games. It's really jarring to go from having really great tab targeting in other games to FF14's system which I've never seen in other games lol. Thank god i can just click the monster but it shouldn't be my default option in most cases xD

About binding. What do you mean specific actions specifically?

Do you just mean spells on a certain bar and stuff? Hit escape , select keybinding and scroll to the hot bar you want to edit and swap out its original bind for which ever key or key combo you prefer. If you mean something else my bad lol, half awake here and don't have the presence of mind to consider other interpretations xD

As far as I can tell FF14 only allows you to use Shift/Control+key for combo presses unfortunately (so no caps+1 or tab+1 for instance)

Control+Key has always been bad for me for the most part but Shift+key isn't so bad at all. The key is a little wider in most cases and the placement makes it less of a stretch to press for a pinky or other finger in addition to the number or alphabet key you are gunning for.

I mean if I can physically set an action to correspond to a key I can completely eliminate having to hold in control etc. Can I do that? So instead of Ctrl+123456 I could just have those actions by QWERTY?

 

[Lex]

Spoiler: Finally got Xanthos. It now plays the garuda music when you're riding it :D

 

[Geostigma]

I mean if I can physically set an action to correspond to a key I can completely eliminate having to hold in control etc. Can I do that? So instead of Ctrl+123456 I could just have those actions by QWERTY?

Yes.

As an example these are my bars currently:

My bars


Also still trying to find a visually appealing bar aesthetic lol. Currently using 3 horizontal bars with unused slots turned off and 2 vertical bars on the right, unfortunately scaling the bars is only based on presets and i cant quite get the right size for what i was going for ;_;

 

[Lex]

Interesting. I'll fiddle with it when I've got some time .

 

[Cait Sith]

I haven't played on my TLS character in ages...

I'm done with storyline on my main and am now doing atma farming (wooooooooo), so I'll get my ass in gear and play with y'all more. I really wanna try and get caught up before Heavensward is released (I know, I know... Good Luck to me!)..

 

[Lex]

I got my zeta so I feel like I've "completed" DRG as far as it can go without farming final coil.

I also got Boreas, the shiva pony. Joined a farm group and rolled 94 on the first drop. Oh yeah.

Farming all the 120 gear for my WAR, got his 130 spear using poetics. I have enough weeks left to get the 130 staff for the white mage, who is now level 42 and fast approaching 50. Got THM to 18-ish, getting him up to 26 for swiftcast.

So yeah I've made quite a bit of progress, feeling good about that .

 

[Lex]

Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward

*Pronounced "Heavensward", like "Skyward" or "Onward", and not like "Heaven's Ward" the way I and most people have been saying it for months XD.

This might seem a bit redundant what with the XIV and Free Company thread, but that first is a bit outdated and the second is specifically for the Free Company.

I decided to close the original XIV thread and have everyone start posting about XIV in this one since it's time for a change and we may as well echo what the game is doing, moving on from A Realm Reborn. We may as well do this for each expansion down the line. Some people may disagree but since the original poster is no longer active I thought it was time for a change, and all the discussion was getting a bit lost in there.

Some goodies:

Main theme

Possible Ishgard Theme

And of course, trailer:

Playing XIV has taught me something about the nature of MMO's. The world really changes. I can pick up any single player FF game and the world map is always going to be the same. In XIV new areas become accessible and old ones sometimes disappear. Mor Dhona is literally completely different from when ARR first launched. In a way it's a little sad, because you're never going to be able to go back to the way it originally looked.

Can't wait for Heavensward <3

 

[Lex]

Discussion of FFXIV has now moved to this thread. <3

 

[Tetsujin]

I don't care enough about playing MMOs. Maybe someone should stream this for me.

 

[Jason Tandro]

I went on a huge rush of ARR for a few months, but it's simmered down a bit lately for a few reasons.

1) I'm at the endgame as a Level 50 DPS and waiting for Castrum Meridanium as a DPS is especially obnoxious (Dragoon, BTW)

2) My tank class is Level 32 (Warrior) and while I could level it to make my wait time shorter, I don't feel comfortable tanking a dungeon I am unfamiliar with.

3) My healing class is in the teens (Conjurer) and while my wife has a White Mage, she wants to complete the game with a DPS because she feels that she's not performing well as a healer. I try to tell her that she's doing perfectly fine, but the game tends to breed insecurities especially when you're not playing with your FC.

4) I've been toying with Disciple of the Hand and Disciple of the Land, but while they began fun they're getting time consuming and monotonous.

5) Gold Saucer could have been so much better. Chocobo Races and Triple Triad are nice, but where's the arcade games, gambling like in Serendipity? I want my snowboarding mini-game. I realize that'd be tricky in an MMO, but still.

I'm hoping Heavensward (by the way the proper pronounciation sounds ridiculous imho so I'm still gonna call it Heaven's Ward) will change that. I'm looking forward to machinist and Dark Knight as well as seeing the new areas. One of my favorite things was simply to explore and I've run out of places to explore in the endgame.


Pluggy side note: I found the game's art to be outstanding, and while I know graphics don't make the game, this was one of the primary reason I stuck around and played so long. The only other MMO I played to this length was Runescape, which had rather poor art quality. I even toyed with WoW but couldn't get sucked into it.

My love of the artwork stemmed into a little side project I do courtesy of the PS4 share feature. I stop at scenic vistas and record a short 5 minute video. I'll sometimes use these to fall asleep to, as incredibly nerdy as that sounds.

Here's a few examples of what I mean.

 

[Lex]

I went on a huge rush of ARR for a few months, but it's simmered down a bit lately for a few reasons.

1) I'm at the endgame as a Level 50 DPS and waiting for Castrum Meridanium as a DPS is especially obnoxious (Dragoon, BTW)

That's castrum though. Everybody hates Castrum and nobody does it if they can avoid it. You'll have less wait times for literally everything else in the game (excluding Praetorium).

2) My tank class is Level 32 (Warrior) and while I could level it to make my wait time shorter, I don't feel comfortable tanking a dungeon I am unfamiliar with.

No need, just deal with the obnoxious castrum and prae wait times once and then it's over

3) My healing class is in the teens (Conjurer) and while my wife has a White Mage, she wants to complete the game with a DPS because she feels that she's not performing well as a healer. I try to tell her that she's doing perfectly fine, but the game tends to breed insecurities especially when you're not playing with your FC.

Idk I guess this would depend on where you play. It sounds to me like you may have picked a less populated server/ world or something.

4) I've been toying with Disciple of the Hand and Disciple of the Land, but while they began fun they're getting time consuming and monotonous.

They're all monotonous, they're crafting/ gathering classes XD.

5) Gold Saucer could have been so much better. Chocobo Races and Triple Triad are nice, but where's the arcade games, gambling like in Serendipity? I want my snowboarding mini-game. I realize that'd be tricky in an MMO, but still.

They'll be adding content to Gold Saucer with new patches as time goes by. The initial release was just a base thing.

I'm hoping Heavensward (by the way the proper pronounciation sounds ridiculous imho so I'm still gonna call it Heaven's Ward) will change that. I'm looking forward to machinist and Dark Knight as well as seeing the new areas. One of my favorite things was simply to explore and I've run out of places to explore in the endgame.

If you're looking for the expansion to lower DPS queues, I have bad news. That'll never happen XD. What I can tell you is that if you want the fastest queues, I'd play a healer in HW. The reason for that is that literally everyone wants to level Dark Knight and of the three new classes nobody is interested in Astrologian (except me it seems), so it's likely healers will be insta-queuing for a while - including the older content for all the dark knights levelling.

As for the pronunciation, I had the same reaction as you until I realised "Heaven's Ward" makes no real sense (unless you're supposed to be a ward of heaven or something) and that heavensward just means... toward the sky. It fits quite well what with all the dragons and flying and generally going "up".

 

[ForceStealer]

...I have never thought the name of the expansion looked like anything other than the "proper" pronunciation. Heaven's Ward? But it's all one word, and has no apostrophe. Where would people get that from? It's like...forward and backward, or the examples you used, or westward and eastward, or a million other words that aren't treated like a separate word and "Ward."

 

[Jason Tandro]

...I have never thought the name of the expansion looked like anything other than the "proper" pronunciation. Heaven's Ward? But it's all one word, and has no apostrophe. Where would people get that from? It's like...forward and backward, or the examples you used, or westward and eastward, or a million other words that aren't treated like a separate word and "Ward."

On that note I'll be bathroomsward...

And yeah, I know DPS will eternally remain the lag class and the demand for tanks will plummet with the Dark Knight, but still I like machinist just because I like the idea of a firearms class. Guilty pleasure of mine was playing FFX-2 and making an all Gunner party. We tore it up like Brother's Angels.

(ahem) Embarrassing adolescent confessions not witstanding, Balthier was also my favorite FFXII character. So I like the idea of toying with the class.


To be honest, the gathering and crafting classes have a nice relaxing feel to them. I kind of like the monotony. But in higher classes it's getting harder and less relaxing. Even fishing seems to be losing its relaxing appeal. I'm getting stressed out trying to gather the right ingredients and inventory management is very relaxed for a combat class but if you want to be an efficient crafter you pretty much have to always have your inventory full of goods... it gets bothersome.


By the by, here's all my player info:

Jason Tandro
Aether > Goblin
Free Company: Scales of Redemption <-Frost->

Level 50 Dragoon, Level 39 Leatherworker, Level 32 Marauder, Level 20 Botanist, Level 20 Miner, Level 17 Gladiator, Level 16 Culinarian, Level 15 Conjurer, Level 13 Fisher, Level 7 Archer, Level 6 Arcanist, Level 5 Pugilist, Level 5 Thaumaturge, Level 5 Rogue


I like to try out a little bit of everything as you can see.

 

[ForceStealer]

Like you said, the crafting starts out fun, but it drops off hard and suddenly.

I think the machinist looks cool too. ...I think all the DPS classes are cooler than the other classes, that's a big part of the dearth of tanks, I think.

 

[Lex]

Goblin isn't a horribly under-populated server actually. The server most of us are on (cerberus) is the second most populated in the world. It comes in slightly behind Phoenix which is popular because it's known as a casual/ roleplay server (apparently).

I'm actually super shocked to find that the north american servers are a lot less populated than the EU ones. The most popular by name (Gilgamesh) has 65% of the number of players on Cerberus, and Goblin falls slightly below that.

 

[ForceStealer]

A server has a reputation for being casual AND roleplay?

 

[Splintered]

I was hardcore into ARR but after a few months I completely stopped. It was fun, but I happened to be active when the FC completely died out and that killed the enjoyment a bit. And as soon as I left, lex and others became active again, so there's that.

I enjoyed ARR, but I was waaay to into it and I didn't like how it absolutely ate all of my time. I think I get addicted to things too easily, and I could easily let an MMO consume my life so it's better that I'm gone.

Still I'm glad my MMO was ARR, it was fun, the community was great up until I hit Crystal Tower (which I blame for a lot of my sour thoughts on it), and I finally get what the big deal with MMOs is, large, changing worlds and I made really good friends with people.

I went all the way up to Hauke Manor HM in dungeons ThornmarchHM/UltimaHM in the primals, and I grinded my gear level pretty high, but as soon as I did the next patch dropped better gear and weapons and man that shit was daunting.

2) My tank class is Level 32 (Warrior) and while I could level it to make my wait time shorter, I don't feel comfortable tanking a dungeon I am unfamiliar with.

I blame part of my burnout being my first class ever being a tank, and my second being a healer (PLD and WHM both level 50s). I love tanking but end game content it gets super stressful and I get tankxiety and I'm a super shit healer. DPS was better but I hated the queue times. (I was a blm and an arcanist)

4) I've been toying with Disciple of the Hand and Disciple of the Land, but while they began fun they're getting time consuming and monotonous.

I like Disciple of Hand but it gets super expensive if you aren't doing Disciple of Land with it, and Land I find tedious. It's better when I was storing levequests for Land/Hand as it makes that stuff go much faster and doing Hand/Land when waiting for dungeons.

It was also easier to do multiple Disciple of Hands at once and get their special abilities, it makes crafting HQ so much easier. But once I got to lvl 50, Armorer suddenly got near impossible to get things from. Luckily I had friends who made me a lot of lvl 50 crafting gear for free so that made it easier.

That's castrum though. Everybody hates Castrum and nobody does it if they can avoid it. You'll have less wait times for literally everything else in the game (excluding Praetorium).

I don't mind Castrum, but vanilla ARR I was doing tons of Castrum runs for tomes; there's no point to that dungeon unless you are a tank, besides long queues all the mechanics are tank based.

 

[Hisako]

At some point I played ARR for almost a whole day straight and stayed up until 4AM in the morning trying to level my GLA from 29 to 43 in an attempt to rush to get the Lightning outfit.

Suffice to say I burnt myself out on the game a bit, but uh, I'm slowly building my enthusiasm for the game again. I just hope I don't get overwhelmed by the new stuff when I do jump back in!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Hey, guys, what's your favorite Zelda game? Mine's Ward-of-the-Sky Sword.

 

[Jason Tandro]

@Twilight Mexican: You cheeky bastard you.

@Splintered: DPSing just seems like more fun. They are the most self-sufficient classes as you balance offense and defense, you have the widest range of attacks and in dungeons pretty much your only job is to kill the baddies and make sure the healer doesn't die.

Of course, dem wait times goes without saying.

I chose lancer to start with because my net alter ego, Jason Tandro has traditionally been a lance-wielder. Having toyed with the other DPS classes, I'd say that Lancer remains one of the best. Sure you won't have the versatility of a magical DPS, nor the tight technique of say a Pugilist or Rogue. But Lancers have one key draw that I love. Our attacks are powerful as hell, especially when you start chaining combos and throwing in Dragoon Jump abilities. I know that high Level Pugilist can deal more damage than me. I don't care. I like my Lancer buddy.

Tanking is fun, and I'm told by those I've lead that I'm pretty good at it. I know how to pull aggro, mark enemies, issue concise clear instructions without turning into bossy douchebag and I toss out praise liberally. I've got more than a handful of Player Commendations. That said, I'm good at tanking at the low-level dungeons. The higher level ones I wouldn't want to try because the mechanics seem quite challenging and I'm not THAT good yet. My main problems with two tank classes is coming down from a Lancer, it takes forever to kill things. Sure each strike is powerful, but it seems like I'm much slower.


And no need to tell me about the expensive nature of Disciple of the Hand. I've been caught in a loop of buying raw materials for leather, quick synthing them, selling them on the market, netting between 30,000 and 80,000 depending upon the leather type and then starting all over again. Yes, I know if I went out and got the raw materials that would all be profit, but it takes me around an hour to botanist my way up to 400 earth shards and i don't have an accurate measure for the hides and skins because they don't have a consistent drop. The only thing I get myself is alumen. I can get 99 in about 15 minutes. I was disheartened to find that Peiste Leather sells for less than even Aldgoat Leather and its much higher level, meaning my prior chain has ground to a halt.

Levequesting is one of the best ways to level I know, but I find them rather monotonous. It's different if I'm with somebody, like my wife for instance, but still my preferred method of XP and gil farming is Fates. I pretty much got through Coerthas by spamming S'vara, Roc of Ages, and the Gargamel one. Only ever beat The Eyes Have It once, with something near 30 people including three FC members and lemme tell you right now. Fuck. That. Fate. The reward is not nearly worth the work, considering the entire S'vara Cycle is much easier and nets you nearly double the EXP.