The Final Fantasy XIV Thread [Dawntrail - 7.00]

[Jason Tandro]

Spoiler: Took some Christmas photos... As Santa Christ

 

[Joe]

Omg. Red Mage is a thing.

Red Mage is a thing a Ivalice is coming to XIV.

Must go to bed but cannot contain excitmdgtidgdhjkufd

 

[Jason Tandro]

Omg. Red Mage is a thing.

Red Mage is a thing a Ivalice is coming to XIV.

Must go to bed but cannot contain excitmdgtidgdhjkufd

I heard about this second hand and it all sounds fucking exciting. The Omega raid seems pretty cool too. Man, I gotta step up my game in HW.

God damn look at this beauty. Course the sexy outfit is doubtless Relic gear but we can create similar looks with dyes and glams.

 

[Joker]

holy fuck

 

[Cthulhu]

I dig it. Short-range physical/magic dude thing?

 

[Jason Tandro]

I dig it. Short-range physical/magic dude thing?

It's been described as a "hybrid ranged DPS".

 

[ForceStealer]

Ohhh shit that looks awesome!

I've always liked Red Mages because I'm indecisive, but they went and made it a badass The sword/staff thing is brilliant.

 

[ForceStealer]

And Ivalice? And a Syldra mount?!

Dammit Square...I've been doing so well with my backlog while not playing this game...

 

[Obsidian Fire]

So I'm playing The Last Remnant and apparently some of the armor designers in FFXIV decided to go poking it for armor designs. Specifically the ilvl 215 Monk and Ninja armors. They're pretty much lifted wholesale from the character who's only known as the Conqueror.

I have to say I'm still kinda annoyed that SE wasted such a good character design on a non-FF game...

 

[Ghost X]

@Ivalice news:

 

[Blade]

Now if only Red Mage would show up in Dissidia then we'd get:

 

[Jason Tandro]

Spoiler: Subtle...

 

[Lulcielid]

Now if only Red Mage would show up in Dissidia then we'd get:

Spoiler

Dissidia already has a red mage, it's called Onion Knight.

 

[Joe]

On top of the great qol stuff (summoners get carbuncles now fuck yeaah) the story looks hype as anything. If it's anything like how 2.5 ended then we're in for a real treat leading into Stormblood.

Heavensward has been fantastic. The story of the Dragonsong War did a lot to make you feel very involved in it all. Also the supporting cast have been great. On top of that the encounter design has been phenomenal. Alexander and the raid fights have been clever and beautifully designed and the Warring Triad (so far) have been something special.

Time to catch up.

 

[Joker]

be sure to set aside a shitload of time for those cutscenes homie

gonna be some real game of thrones shit again I bet you

 

[Miscreant]

Soooooo is it me or does the new Diadem actually look like it could be good O_O

I'm still excited for cross server PF more than anything but this does look like a nice patch

 

[Cthulhu]

What's that Diadem thingy then? A dungeon?

edit: anyway looks goode. woop

 

[Joe]

Sort of. It's a very big open area of unconnected islands up in the Sea of Clouds. You join it as an 8-man party but there are a few other parties in your instance

It's very unstructured. There are mobs and items all over the place and some conditions for spawning much higher ranked mobs. They drop gear with randomised stats(?) and appearances. Pretty sure you can also gather/fish stuff here you can't elsewhere.

When it launched there was an allure because you could get gear equivalent to the strongest available through high-end raids. But the chance was slim. Also that unstructured part made it very...er...disappointing. It was basically the No Man's Sky if FFXIV.

 

[Cthulhu]

I take it nobody's using it still?

Actually there's probably loads of areas / elements that aren't being used. Is PVP being done at all?

Palace of the Dead seems popular as fuck though.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

There's a pretty clear ratio between the desirability of drops and how many people want to run content.

POTD is a reliable source for weapons of the same tier as Extreme/Savage content. Combine that with the laughably low level requirements to run it as well as it being pretty stress free compared to Extreme/Savage content and it's no wonder it's so popular.

Diadem drops random equips with random stats and requires you to go though a bunch of hoops to even get into the instance. Running Expert Roulette is a more reliable source of equips then it is and easier to get into to boot.

 

[Jason Tandro]

Very long rant incoming, broken into parts for you. Click on each tag to hear thoughts.

Spoiler: Diadem

didn't really appeal to me mainly because I can't be arsed to get folks together and the idea of doing a PUG (if that's even possible) for something as... well as Joe said "unstructured" as the Diadem seems like hell on earth.

Spoiler: PVP.

Also no desire to ever do PvP. I tried it once and it's not my cup of tea. The thing is the PvP arena and game variants all look great - the Frontline, The Feast, that island thingy. They all look exhilirating and the PvP awards are pretty solid from what I understand. But I play MMOs for teamplay not versus.

Spoiler: POTD

I really want to do POTD. I took a solo stab at the first floor as a Dragoon and failed miserably which is pretty damned embarassing since it's supposedly a faceroll playground. With my schedule I can't reliably be part of a static, so maybe I go in with my wife at some point... Man I can't wait til Kyra is old enough to play video games.

Spoiler: EX Raids

I have cleared many Extreme raids... after the fact. The only extreme raid I ever cleared at level was Bismarck, though to be fair Bismarck is about the easiest Extreme primal on the planet so long as your DPS is good and people know how to handle the weather conditions (which an alarming number of people didn't). Ravana EX has schooled me each time I tried, though I'll want to give him another shot now that I'm pushing ilvl 230.

Spoiler: Alexander and Mhach

are ridiculously fun. I'm playing catch up with the Binding Coil of Bahamut so being able to do Alexander at level was a very enriching experience. I'm also excited for Dun Scaith but I pray to god (and will likely be ignored) that they tone shit down after Mhach. The second and third bosses of Mhach were fucking shit shows and I fail hardcore - particularly at the second guy. I'm not sure why the necro shit causes people such grief.

Spoiler: The Warring Triad

I had a bad experience with Sephirot. For some reason Roulette threw me into the raid before I'd ever done it and I fucked up royally. The normal fight - I can't imagine the EX. I have yet to try Sophia though I probably will before 3.5's launch to prepare for the final guy.

Spoiler: General Gear Gripery

I have been stuck using an ilvl 200 weapon because all the other high powered weapons come from either POTD / PVP or EX Raids. I need to git gud or something because I can't continue this noise. I can't even get into the final Alexander cycle because I'm ilvl 228 right now. Savage you say? Well I'm not that good a player. I'm competent, but for some reason I find the high level strategy of some of these to be a bit too intimidating. Considering I'm a casual who plays these games to relax, this kind of bites into the urge - particularly the nasty ass grind. I can't imagine how folks can be patient enough to do stuff like the Relic / Anima questlines.

 

[Cthulhu]

POTD as in Palace of the Dead? Dude just queue up and faceroll through it. Why would you even try to solo something intended for four players

I can't imagine how folks can be patient enough to do stuff like the Relic / Anima questlines.

Second'd, I did part of it in the pre-expansion thing, but once it goes to doing books (which involves iirc doing three dungeons, five fates and idk, leves? times twelve? ish), I was like fuck that shit. Reward doesn't outweigh the effort.

I do think FFXIV strikes a good balance between various playstyles; casual / occasionally (you can probably spend a few hundred hours leisurely doing the game and its story before you hit 60 on your first character), hardcore / completionist (end- endgame content, e.g. savage wossnames, raids requiring a pre-formed party, etc), RP and the visually inclined, (some) PVP, even (although this is the most boring part) non-combat via jobs. And you can pick whatever you want to do based on how much time you want to invest; you can do just an hour or so a day (duty roulettes and whatnot), or 16 hours / day (anima quest grind, job grind, leveling other jobs, etc)

I like to think I'm a filthy casual, and once it involves interacting with people beyond a "hello" or heavy grinding (e.g. anima weapons), I'm out . Maybe if / when I'm unemployed or ever become unfit to work or something, idk.

 

[Jason Tandro]

POTD as in Palace of the Dead? Dude just queue up and faceroll through it. Why would you even try to solo something intended for four players

Can you queue up for it? I didn't think it was on the Duty Finder.

I can't imagine how folks can be patient enough to do stuff like the Relic / Anima questlines.

Second'd, I did part of it in the pre-expansion thing, but once it goes to doing books (which involves iirc doing three dungeons, five fates and idk, leves? times twelve? ish), I was like fuck that shit. Reward doesn't outweigh the effort.

I do think FFXIV strikes a good balance between various playstyles; casual / occasionally (you can probably spend a few hundred hours leisurely doing the game and its story before you hit 60 on your first character), hardcore / completionist (end- endgame content, e.g. savage wossnames, raids requiring a pre-formed party, etc), RP and the visually inclined, (some) PVP, even (although this is the most boring part) non-combat via jobs. And you can pick whatever you want to do based on how much time you want to invest; you can do just an hour or so a day (duty roulettes and whatnot), or 16 hours / day (anima quest grind, job grind, leveling other jobs, etc)

I like to think I'm a filthy casual, and once it involves interacting with people beyond a "hello" or heavy grinding (e.g. anima weapons), I'm out . Maybe if / when I'm unemployed or ever become unfit to work or something, idk.

And there are times when I enjoy each of those aspects. I do ocassionally like the added challenge especially when a fight has really fun mechanics (Levi EX is my favorite extreme primal for just this reason. Lots of running around, very engaging fight.) I attended an RP Party on my friend's server and it was an odd affair but I enjoyed playing the part of a traveling scholar.

And I find the crafting jobs and gathering jobs to be enjoyable if a touch monotonous. I really like the crafting concept but the question is always whether or not what you are crafting is terribly useful beyond selling. While it is my lowest of the gathering skills I find Fishing to be kind of soothing. I like the idea of just chilling and catching fish (even if it is nothing close to the fun of the FFXV fishing minigame). Still siting on the dock in Fallgourd Float catching fish after killing something - lots of fun.

Favorite crafting job? My best is Leatherworker (specialty and all that) but I think I enjoy Culinarian. During a Moonfire Faire a year or two ago I was at the local Fish Fry in Costa Del Sol and painstakingly fried over 400 fish for the people doing the quest. It was great. People donated supplies and shards, I did the cooking and another dude handed them out. Great community, that's the best thing about FF14 - the people are (usually) chill as hell.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

POTD as in Palace of the Dead? Dude just queue up and faceroll through it. Why would you even try to solo something intended for four players

Can you queue up for it? I didn't think it was on the Duty Finder.

It's not in the Duty Finder. You have to talk to an NPC in Quarrymill get in the POTD queue, but once you're in it, it works the same way as any other queue does.

On POTD, Floors 1-50 are crazy easy, you just have to remember how to play your classes at really low levels. And you get an ilvl 235 weapon out of it. It probably takes 3-4 runs of floors 1-50 to get it, less if you're doing Floors 50-100. It's a great way to relearn how to play classes if you haven't played them in a while. And if you want to sink some more time into it, you can also get ilvl 255 weapons as well...

Anima quests are all about using classes other then the one you're getting the weapon for to get drops. And about using the Roulettes as that's a great source of tomestones. It's also about figuring out what stages of the weapon are easy to get and what aren't.

IE: while getting my SMN anima weapon I leveled up Astro for fate drops/ather oils/poetics tombstones. The grind up to Hyperconductive is really easy now, so I got that for AST and am in the process for getting it for DRK. The Umbrite grind to get the weapon after that is insane though, so I'm holding off on that until it gets nerfed.

Haven't done Relic quests, but I have several classes at lvl 50 and I want to level them up to clear out my equip inventory. So I'm thinking about doing the relic quests if simply for an excuse to do some FATE grinding. It'll also eliminate a step in the Anima quest, so that's good too.

Quick and Dirty guide to getting your ilvl up

Gearing gets way easier for the other classes once you have one class leveled up. Then you can start collecting equips for other classes so that when they get to lvl 60 they already have decent level gear. Good equips to prioritize (aside from the class you main) are Tank, Healer, and Long Range DPS gear as those will gear up multiple classes. Meele DPS gear only gears up one class, so that takes up a lot of space.

On weapon equips: When you get to lvl 50, you'll probably want to run Shiva Extreme (unsynced) to get Diamond weapons. They're better then the weapons for sale in Ishgaurd and Shiva is a really easy Extreme to beat when unsynced (no anti-DPS mechanics). They also won't be outclassed until you get to the lvl 55 dungeon. The lvl 55 weapons are really good to get too as they outclass the lvl 60 weapons for sale in Idllyshire. Around lvl 55 is when you should start doing POTD so that when you get to lvl 60 you've got a Padajali/Kinna weapon waiting for you already.

On armor equips: If you're not doing Anima, feel free to get Ironworks gear at lvl 50. If you run a lot of World of Darkness, then those equips work just as well. It'll save you a bunch of gil. Get gear from the lvl 55 dungeon as that's an upgrade to both those sets. If you you're leveling your first class to lvl 60, then you're in for a bit of an equip grind. If you're not doing Anima, Tombstones will help out a ton. The main thing you're aiming for is Expert Roulette as the ilvl gear that drops from that is good enough to get you into raiding content. You can also get that gear for your other classes so you only have to do a major gear grind once.

On Roulettes: As annoying as tracking down all the dungeons needed for the Roulettes can be, doing so is a good idea if you want your equip grind to be as painless as possible. Roulettes are one of the biggest sources of Tombstones in the game and Tombstone gear is a higher ilvl then all the equips available in dungeons until it's phased out. Getting the Roulettes unlocked means you have to run less dungeons for the same amount of Tombstones so you can get gear faster and more reliably.

For me, half the fun of playing games is playing them as efficiently as possible. In most MMOs that equates to grinding efficiently. Fortunately, FFXIV has a lot of ways to do that...

 

[Joe]

Preliminary patch notes for 3.5

A lot of fantastic QoL changes here on top of the new content. Obviously I'm stoked for Carbuncles to come back into play. The customisable hotbars also look dope.