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I put off playing FF14 for 2 years after my friend first recommended it to me because while I heard it had a great story and I was interested in experiencing it, I had never played an MMO before and my impression of what they were like had me thinking I wouldn't enjoy it. So I was the guy who would say things like "I wish there was just a single player version of FF14 so I could experience the story". Once I finally got into it post Shadowbringers though I realized I couldn't be more wrong. FF14 being an MMO is part of why it's great. The story and the multiplayer gameplay go hand in hand to make the game as great as it is.
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Aug 1, 2021 23:47
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cheetah7071 posted:The progression of each expansion is a full-length JRPG, in the 30-60 hour range depending how much you gently caress around and how fast of a reader you are. If you skip cutscenes it's probably half as long, though I'd really recommend just playing another game if you don't care about the story at all. In that 30-60 hour period, there will be 10ish pieces of group content in the expansions. More like 15 or so in ARR, since it has a higher dungeon density. The story in between expansions tends to have higher group content density, but still probably only one mandatory piece every few hours--but with a metric shitton of optional content you can do at any time once you finish the MSQ through level 50/60/70. Okay that doesn't sound great lol. It's the other way around actually, I'm the one watching the cutscenes  My friend is very mechanics focused, no time for story. I'm not against story, I don't bother much with it in WoW but that's more down to the quality than anything else, and if a game has an expressly story-driven focus I will try and engage with it in the way it's meant to be. I knew coming in that FF14 was much more story-focussed than WoW or other MMOs and I thought I was reasonably prepared for that. I still intend to give it a fair shot and I'm not hating it so far, but to be honest I think my reasons for coming to FF are similar to many other recent WoW converts in that it's not about FF really at all, but just out of a lack of options. WoW is absolutely in the toilet with no signs of ever recovering, and FF seems to be the only game out there that could call itself a competitor. I'd partly put off trying it because I'm not really a big FF fan and I don't really like the whole FF aesthetic, but I have enjoyed some FF games, in part due to their interesting battle systems. So far I guess I can't be that surprised that it feels kinda like a budget FF game but with a slightly janky action-MMO battle system instead. But I have heard over and over again from people I trust that it contains some of the best challenging high end group MMO content in the world, and a pretty good story. I confess I'm not really seeing either of those things yet but I didn't expect to this early into the game, I'm just surprised by how hard it has shied away from utilising some of the amazing upside of the genre. I fell in love with MMOs back around the turn of the millennium precisely because of the limitless potential they seemed to offer by giving players genuine freedom and agency in a living, breathing world. I accept that modern MMOs have dialled back a lot on some of that ambition in order to please a mass-market, and probably in many cases for the better. But right now I don't feel like I'm playing an MMO at all, I feel like I'm playing a thoroughly mediocre single player game where I can just happen to everyone else's player characters running and jumping and dancing around me, and I just don't understand how that is serving anyone.
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Aug 1, 2021 23:55
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If you're looking for a more freeform Ultima-esque MMO, no, this is very much not it. There is a very large amount of people who enjoy MMO gameplay and also enjoy a good story, such as myself.
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Aug 1, 2021 23:59
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Shadowbringers is not only my favourite final fantasy story, it's my favourite video game story period. And I love FFXIV but man those first 30-50 levels can be painful. Even with a large XP bonus I really have to grin and bear levelling additional jobs up to that point. Some people like ARR though, and some still aren't big on Heavensward and beyond. But I do think it objectively gets much, much better.
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Aug 2, 2021 00:05
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I think something that's important to understand is that in it's beginning, FFXIV was designed to be an MMO for people who've never played an MMO before. WoW never really penetrated into Japan, which is where FFXIV's domestic audience is, so the devs expected a lot of it's player base to be complete newbies to the genre. The early game is designed to be a slow and gradual onboarding process for that; starting with solo focused and simple content while gradually drip feeding the multiplayer aspects. This does mean that for MMO vets like you and your friend, you'll have to put up with the slow start. You're basically still in the tutorial. The story will pick up, in both its writing an presentation, which will be nice for you. And having that main story throughline does really help you feel like you're part of the world and it's ongoing development. As for your friend, he might have a bit of a trickier time getting into everything, but it isn't impossible. The best advice I can give is play together in VC, enjoy each other's company there when you have to drop party, and try to relax and enjoy the ride. But if one of you is gonna be miserable the whole time, I'd say it might not be the game for both of you to play together.
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Aug 2, 2021 00:16
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Hellioning posted:If you're looking for a more freeform Ultima-esque MMO, no, this is very much not it. I don't think I really want an Ultima-esque MMO, I think that's something people like the idea of much more than the reality, though I take your point. I really do feel like there is an enormous gap in the market right now though, for people that want a WoW style streamlined, accessible MMO that still feels like an MMO, but isn't run by incompetent sex criminals. Just look at how immensely popular WoW was in its heyday, the draw classic had just 2 years ago, and the fact that people are flocking to a game like FF14 from WoW in such numbers that really doesn't appear to cater to the same type of player.
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Aug 2, 2021 00:19
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It really isn't all that different. Just instead of collecting bear asses you're watching a video game anime story that ranges from mediocre to phenomenal. Turns out a lot of converts end up actually liking it better!
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Aug 2, 2021 00:31
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the problem is that MMOs take a lot of money and a whole lot of time to make. the gap in the market we have now is a result of a gap in development 4-5 years ago, because everyone figured WoW was always going to be king and nobody felt like it'd be worth it. but we're starting to see some new entries coming up soon, like New World and Ashes of Creation, that are really ambitious and have a lot of interesting ideas, that started out when WoW was starting to decline. their current accelerated decline will doubtless inspire even more to pop up, we just have to wait.
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Aug 2, 2021 00:33
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Also as far as time spent on the MSQ vs dungeons, that doesn't count the various daily Duty roulettes, which can easily cover a couple hours if you do them all (especially if you're doing the Main Scenario quest)
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Aug 2, 2021 00:34
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It's been mentioned by newbies a few times in this thread so here is a quick rundown to quest icons. Everything in the game is gated by the Main Scenario Quest in some way, including other quest types. It is your driving force in the game. If you are finding yourself way overlevelled for things, you should either go progress the MSQ, or switch to a different job to level that up a bit. Blue Unlock Quest are divided up into three rough categories. 1. Actual content and feature unlocks. Dungeon unlocks, mounts, raid unlocks, even unlocking the hairdresser. Lengthy sidequests with cutscenes. 2. Class/job unlocks. This is normally pretty obvious because they're located at the various guilds. 3. Relic Weapon quests. While you can't tell the difference between the three categories at a glance, you should do all of 1 that you see. Unlock all that content. Unlock every job you're interested in if you'd really like. I still think gathering is best saved until you've unlocked flying. Yellow side quests including repeatable quests are completely ignorable. The most they give out is a bit of extra lore, and maybe a bit of gear or other money. I cannot emphasise enough: Ignore yellow quests. They're something to do while queueing for a dungeon or something, or desperately levelling another job that little extra notch. Get on that main quest and whatever big blue quest chain you're on.
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Aug 2, 2021 00:44
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Repeatable quests are ones you can do over and over again, usually on a daily basis. Most of them are attached to Beast Tribes, a form of optional content. There are some weekly repeatables but those tend to be attached to relic quests.
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Aug 2, 2021 00:50
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Cluzic posted:I think something that's important to understand is that in it's beginning, FFXIV was designed to be an MMO for people who've never played an MMO before. WoW never really penetrated into Japan, which is where FFXIV's domestic audience is, so the devs expected a lot of it's player base to be complete newbies to the genre....
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Aug 2, 2021 00:54
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Ouroboros posted:I don't think I really want an Ultima-esque MMO, I think that's something people like the idea of much more than the reality, though I take your point. That's more inertia and nostalgia than an indication in a massive difference between the kinds of games WoW and FFXIV are imo. I think you have a strong point that FFXIV doesn't feel social enough while leveling your first job but after you've finished that basically everything combat-related you do ingame, including leveling, involves playing with other people.
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Aug 2, 2021 00:55
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AngusPodgorny posted:I've never really understood this, because wouldn't FFXIV's primary market be expected to have played FFXI, the other MMO in the series? Unless it was never big in Japan, which I don't know, because I never played it. FFXI is a vastly different play experience than XIV. XI is an EverQuest style MMO with everything that implies. XIV is a hotbar MMO in the theme park style similar to WoW.
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Aug 2, 2021 01:00
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Kwyndig posted:FFXI is a vastly different play experience than XIV. XI is an EverQuest style MMO with everything that implies. XIV is a hotbar MMO in the theme park style similar to WoW. And to add to this, 1.0 very much was catering to the FFXI vets. Part of the reason for it's failure was because of the dated and obtuse design which catered to a quickly waning audience. 2.0, by contrast, was attempting to get new players into the genre.
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Aug 2, 2021 01:10
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FFXI had wayyyyyy more story and cut scenes than WoW did back then. CoP was a banger.
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Aug 2, 2021 01:13
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acumen posted:It really isn't all that different. Just instead of collecting bear asses you're watching a video game anime story that ranges from mediocre to phenomenal. I don't know that sounds like a pretty major difference to me. Sure that will appeal to some, but I feel like there are an awful lot of WoW or ex-WoW players who are primarily mechanically focused and have little to no interest in video game anime stories. I think if you can pinpoint one thing that has underpinned WoW's success from the very start it is just how drat fun and good just pressing your buttons in combat feels. For all its many faults, combat in WoW, be it in mythic raids or open world levelling content has always been brilliantly smooth and responsive and creates a fantastic positive feedback loop that makes all the various activities you engage in have an underlying sense of fun. Which is why collecting bear asses can be fine, if the process of actually doing it feels fun and rewarding in that sort of primal, lizard brain way! I have to caveat my previous statement to mention that I think any game that does try to fill that market gap would have to replicate that feeling in its core gameplay loops, which is clearly much easier said than done, but if it could I think the trappings just need to be decent to unseat WoW for a lot of people who I think still enjoy WoW's combat but no longer have any hope for the future of the game's development. To be honest I just don't feel like FF's combat has that. It's not bad, it just lacks that polish and fluidity that makes it really click. Maybe that will change when I get access to more abilities and complete rotations, but I feel like its something so elemental that I would have felt it by now, it's hard to put into words I guess. But Kerzzhe made a good point about the development lag, when WoW was king everyone and their dog tried to replicate the formula to dethrone WoW and they all failed to the point where people stopped trying. Hopefully other developers and publishers will see the current state of WoW and Blizzard and their exodus of players and start gunning for them again, rather than just trying to find a niche to co-exist with them, a time which FF definitely feels like something of a relic of. Anyway this is getting kinda off topic so I will stop now 
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Aug 2, 2021 01:21
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In terms of combat "gamefeel" FFXIV gets a lot better when you have a lot of abilities (especially off-GCD abilities) and start mixing them together more. Just using individual abilities can feel a little underwhelming at first, but they end up flowing together pretty well.
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Aug 2, 2021 01:26
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I got to level 30 and unlocked the Summoner job. If I want to try out the Black Mage, or another job, how do I do that?
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Aug 2, 2021 01:45
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You go to the starting city for the job and pick up the level 1 quest for it. This will give you your starting weapon, which you'll need to actually become the job.
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Aug 2, 2021 01:50
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Big Mouth Billy Basshole posted:I got to level 30 and unlocked the Summoner job. If I want to try out the Black Mage, or another job, how do I do that? You can unlock all the base ARR jobs at their respective guilds. For Black Mage specifically, you'll want to head to the Thaumaturge guild in Ul'dah. The ARR jobs will all start you at level 1 again, but catching up in level will go very quickly.
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Aug 2, 2021 01:50
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Combat gamefeel seems to kinda vary. I used to play an arms warrior which felt a lot like just pressing buttons at a healthbar, and marauder/warrior in FFXIV honestly felt the same way. Dragoon was the one that first clicked with me in how kinetic the attacks felt. And yeah, having only a couple buttons doesn't help either. Making big explosions or launching drill rockets feels way better than "hit" and "hit again". Big Mouth Billy Basshole posted:I got to level 30 and unlocked the Summoner job. If I want to try out the Black Mage, or another job, how do I do that? Just find the appropriate guild (should have a special icon) in one of the starting cities. If you don't wanna teleport around just look up the start point online.
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Aug 2, 2021 01:54
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The maps actually have the guild locations marked with the class icon on them, so it's fairly easy to locate them if you're in the right city.
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Aug 2, 2021 01:56
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Big Mouth Billy Basshole posted:I got to level 30 and unlocked the Summoner job. If I want to try out the Black Mage, or another job, how do I do that? Don't forget that Arcanist 30 unlocks Scholar as well as Summoner. Having a DPS and a Healer that share the same level and XP pool is pretty valuable.
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Aug 2, 2021 02:02
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oh i didnt realize that at all what else shares exp pools
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Aug 2, 2021 02:42
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Absolutely nothing. Classes gain exp, not jobs. It's why even when you're a level 79 bard and have been a bard for most of your time playing this game the log will still tell you that you gained archer EXP. It's just that arcanist is the only class that has more than one job.
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Aug 2, 2021 02:43
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It's a relic from back when they were considering tying multiple Jobs to individual Classes, when to get your Job you head to multiclass something else to 15 and potentially higher if you wanted to be fully effective. This got abandoned by the first expansion, but the legacy of that initial idea remains in Scholar and Summoner being tied to the same Class.
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Aug 2, 2021 02:51
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Super No Vacancy posted:oh i didnt realize that at all what else shares exp pools It is a weird quirk of scholar and summoner only. The initial plan was to have a bunch of different jobs that shared the same base class. IIRC, dark knight was originally going to be a melee DPS alternative to warrior. But they ended up abandoning that idea for various reasons, so now jobs added in expansions don't even have base classes.
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Aug 2, 2021 02:53
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How long does it take to queue for a DPS slot usually for group content? I've just got my guildhests and first dungeon unlocked and I had to wait like 10 minutes before starting one while queuing. Does the queue time get any better as you go into higher level content or is it only that long for low level content which no one is running nowadays?
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Aug 2, 2021 03:30
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First off, there's no reason to do guildhests. They were obsolete on day one and these days the lessons they try to teach aren't even relevant anymore. For dungeons though, I'd say 5-15 minutes is about normal for DPS. It being low level doesn't matter because of how duty roulette works.
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Aug 2, 2021 03:31
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My experience with the leveling roulette is 15 minutes for DPS, a bit under 5 for tank, and often under a second for healing.
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Aug 2, 2021 03:36
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shoc77 posted:How long does it take to queue for a DPS slot usually for group content? DPS queues are usually about that long, yeah. Except for alliance raids, where the ratios are different (they need 3 tanks, 6 healers, and 15 DPS). Those queues are a good time for doing sidequests or working on leveling other classes or crafting or other stuff like that. You don't have to stay on the same class, you just have to switch back within 45 seconds when the queue pops (which always happens the second you move away from the keyboard).
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Aug 2, 2021 03:43
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Question about the Aesthetician -- I'm a touch confused on the token I got for him. Do you have to find one of those every time you want to use his services? Or is that just a freebie use and then i can pay Gil but can always summon him in the inn?
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Aug 2, 2021 04:13
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jivjov posted:Question about the Aesthetician -- I'm a touch confused on the token I got for him. Do you have to find one of those every time you want to use his services? Or is that just a freebie use and then i can pay Gil but can always summon him in the inn? it's this one
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Aug 2, 2021 04:14
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Cool--the actual item description was unclear and I didn't want to waste my use if it was hard to get another.
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Aug 2, 2021 04:15
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Also you only have to pay him/use the token if you confirm changes. You can summon him to gently caress around but back out and he doesn't cost anything.
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Aug 2, 2021 04:21
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Another little miscellanious tip, for people playing with a controller: System Configuration->Gamepad Settings has a setting where you can make your controller vibrate when whatever you're queuing for finds a group. Great for if you're, for example, queueing as DPS and doing something else while waiting for the queue to pop.
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Aug 2, 2021 04:54
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It's also helpful to go into sound settings and let system sounds play when the client is inactive, that way if you tab away from the game while in the queue you'll still hear the notification. It's been so long, I'm not sure if that's selected by default or not.
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Aug 2, 2021 05:08
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As someone who exclusively heals and tanks, I did not realize that it wasn't normal to have queues less then a minute.
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Aug 2, 2021 06:09
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Is there any place that unlocks more facial hair styles?
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Aug 2, 2021 06:49
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