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Yeah with the NPCs and players the shared spaces of the game feel lively in a way that more cramped quarters wouldn't, I mean, load into Limsa and you'll almost definitely feel overwhelmed the first couple of times from all the idlers stretched across that wide open space around the Aetherite. Also the ambient crowd noises it plays when there's a critical mass of players is excellent, although I'll hear that Miqo'te laughter in my nightmares until I'm old and gray.
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Mar 1, 2024 16:51
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| # ? May 25, 2024 18:03 |
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FUN
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Mar 1, 2024 16:54
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Kwyndig posted:Also the ambient crowd noises it plays when there's a critical mass of players is excellent, although I'll hear that Miqo'te laughter in my nightmares until I'm old and gray. The music in Revnant's Toll just sounds wrong to me without those ambient crowd noises now. Even moreso than Limsa, it was the endgame hub on my server.
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Mar 1, 2024 16:58
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Kwyndig posted:Yeah with the NPCs and players the shared spaces of the game feel lively in a way that more cramped quarters wouldn't, I mean, load into Limsa and you'll almost definitely feel overwhelmed the first couple of times from all the idlers stretched across that wide open space around the Aetherite. Also the ambient crowd noises it plays when there's a critical mass of players is excellent, although I'll hear that Miqo'te laughter in my nightmares until I'm old and gray. First time I ever loaded into Limsa a handful of bards were doing a concert at the Aetherite, which was a cool introduction.
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Mar 1, 2024 17:31
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Kwyndig posted:Yeah with the NPCs and players the shared spaces of the game feel lively in a way that more cramped quarters wouldn't, I mean, load into Limsa and you'll almost definitely feel overwhelmed the first couple of times from all the idlers stretched across that wide open space around the Aetherite. Also the ambient crowd noises it plays when there's a critical mass of players is excellent, although I'll hear that Miqo'te laughter in my nightmares until I'm old and gray. It's that cartoon lalafell laugh that gets me
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Mar 1, 2024 18:17
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FuturePastNow posted:It's that cartoon lalafell laugh that gets me BLEUGH
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Mar 1, 2024 18:23
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FuturePastNow posted:It's that cartoon lalafell laugh that gets me The one that sounds like Wendee Lee?
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Mar 1, 2024 18:57
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The elite hang out in Sharlayan  no but seriously, the Sharlayan day/night themes are so beautiful
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Mar 1, 2024 19:13
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Yeah but you can't park a free trial account there wearing the cascadier set and doing /dance like you can with Limsa.
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Mar 1, 2024 19:19
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People will get a bit hypoerbolic about ARR being "bad" ("lowest of the expansions" is still pretty good) but it is *old*. The gameplay has changed a lot since then, but the story hasn't and it's kinda built around a much slower grindy pace taking you to new areas to spend a while in doing Fates and sidequests. Since then MSQ XP has gone way up so it's a lot easier to feel like you're being sent somewhere just to immediately turn around, and the jobs don't have all their abilities crammed into levels 1-50 so every job feels a bit empty and a few in particular can feel like ghost towns. Basically: they're trying to establish a setting for the whole continent. Later expansions have only one or two kingdoms/plotlines to focus on and can take a much more direct route through them. Quests aren't ever going to be less "basic" though, aside from a few special ones. The game's very story-first and quests are an excuse to deliver that, and also meant to be completed on any job so you can't have some heavy dps challenge or anything.
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Mar 1, 2024 20:34
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arr is also very different tonally and in terms of how it wants you to think of the setting, and the shift from where it was then to where it is now is pretty gradual over a couple expansions. someone who really vibes with arr's whole trying to be very "this is a plausible equivalent to the early modern period" with only a dash of the FF standard high-concept stuff might not vibe with the more classically FF postmodern genre fiction blender that is so prominent later, or vice versa
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Mar 1, 2024 20:39
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Something WoW, Guildwars, and other MMOs do to spice up quests are unique mechanics for them. Often it'll be a vehicle or that engine's equivalent where they can invoke one-off sets of skills that you use just on that quest. WoW also had their "phases" where the state of the world could vary quite a bit for individual players while still letting them interact with other humans unlike hard instances. There's a bit of that in how some quest npc's will only appear for people on that quest here, but I've not seen like major world state changes outside of instances. I don't think I ever saw anything like that in the entire ARR MSQ or side quests (though I stopped doing side quests around level 15 because I was just so overleveled.)
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Mar 1, 2024 20:41
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even today, ff14 has very few quest setpieces equivalent to what wow was even doing in 2008 with the dragon riding vehicle quests and such. it is a bit of a slog, which is why you get advised to not try and cram everything in at once. but also, when you stop and smell the roses, make sure to stop and smell the optional dungeons and raids because that's where ff14 puts all its mechanical effort, in its instances
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Mar 1, 2024 20:44
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Nitrousoxide posted:Something WoW, Guildwars, and other MMOs do to spice up quests are unique mechanics for them. Often it'll be a vehicle or that engine's equivalent where they can invoke one-off sets of skills that you use just on that quest. WoW also had their "phases" where the state of the world could vary quite a bit for individual players while still letting them interact with other humans unlike hard instances. There's a bit of that in how some quest npc's will only appear for people on that quest here, but I've not seen like major world state changes outside of instances. Yeah there's NPCs appearing and sometimes they'll change the skybox but no really substantial changes
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Mar 1, 2024 20:59
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they really have pushed the boundaries so far of what might fit in over the years. I mean, consider the notion of showing somebody that just cleared brayflox a screen shot of (EW spoilers) the Ragnarok with zero context. ARR feels very old school even to me and i've only been playing since EW launch weekend. Not bad, just different.
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Mar 1, 2024 20:59
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Qwertycoatl posted:Yeah there's NPCs appearing and sometimes they'll change the skybox but no really substantial changes Out of curiosity, do special weather events like Everlasting Light or Apocalypse have any effect on weather-based mechanics like fishing?
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Mar 1, 2024 21:03
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quiggy posted:Out of curiosity, do special weather events like Everlasting Light or Apocalypse have any effect on weather-based mechanics like fishing? No, but the snow for the winter seasonal events does e: actually I might be wrong and it does
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Mar 1, 2024 21:06
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ARR isn't bad but all the other expacs are better... in hindsight. I respect what it did, it had to come first. I'm also grateful that the story strokes picked up from 40 onwards and got me invested. It is a very good idea every time you hit a level cap(50, 60, 70, etc) to clear out all the blue quest marks you can find and see the extra stories and raids, at least unlock their features and see the extra raid/trial storylines. Don't force yourself to full clear tribal quests, relic weapons, Eureka or Bozja unless you truly want to since they can take awhile and were intended for weeks or months of play! ARR will force you to go to one alliance raid series, the rest are optional(and 60 adds the duo piece of normal raids) but excellent and show a big part of what the game is about. Also while the questlines are good they are also structured to give you about 3 wings over a year so take your time on them, take a break if it feels long. quiggy posted:Out of curiosity, do special weather events like Everlasting Light or Apocalypse have any effect on weather-based mechanics like fishing? They do! I was reading the Fisher's Guide to Eorzea and distinctly remember it being mentioned. They can disable fishing until you resolve them or in the case of holidays lock certain rare fish in or out. Doomykins fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Mar 1, 2024 |
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Mar 1, 2024 22:00
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oh my god, samurai questline in Kugane is literally "revolution bad, you need to change system from the inside", it aged poorly.
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Mar 1, 2024 22:12
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It's not really. The "revolutionaries" want a bloody war to put themselves in the same positions of power as the current nobility. They don't want to change the system. They want a bunch of people to die and then return to the status quo with them on top.
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Mar 1, 2024 22:17
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Doomykins posted:They do! I was reading the Fisher's Guide to Eorzea and distinctly remember it being mentioned. They can disable fishing until you resolve them or in the case of holidays lock certain rare fish in or out. I know some goon has mentioned trying to finish the Sightseeing Log for a ARR, only to run into the problem that one of the weather-specific sightseeing spots in Gridania was locked to Snow for all three weeks of the winter event and impossible to do for the duration. I think the locked holiday weather is an exception and not a rule though. The rare FATEs that change the zone weather to something event-specific like Royal Levin don't change fishing results, which will behave as if the weather was whatever it normally would've been without the FATE active. Basically: the actual weather is whatever
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Mar 1, 2024 22:36
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I understand that goons are physically incapable of comprehending that there are people who want to overthrow the government and are evil but God the SAM questline really draws them out. You're siding with the kampeitai against Sadao Araki's faction. FuturePastNow posted:It's that cartoon lalafell laugh that gets me HA HA HA HA HA FUN
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Mar 1, 2024 22:45
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*resets the "Days Since StB SAM Discourse" counter to zero, looks uncomfortably at the "Days Since Elemental Discourse" next to it"
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Mar 1, 2024 23:18
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Important new discourse question: why does Urianger, the largest Archon, not simply eat the others?
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Mar 1, 2024 23:22
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Antivehicular posted:Important new discourse question: why does Urianger, the largest Archon, not simply eat the others? because the others are not made of archon loaf
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Mar 2, 2024 04:11
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Antivehicular posted:Important new discourse question: why does Urianger, the largest Archon, not simply eat the others? Y'sthola would simply Flow out of his stomach and god only knows where Thancred's been.
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Mar 2, 2024 04:38
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Urinager's height just means there's more of him to bully
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Mar 2, 2024 04:50
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tataru holding urianger back from missions just so he can fetch poo poo from the top of the cabinets in the kitchen
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Mar 2, 2024 05:23
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Kwyndig posted:Yeah with the NPCs and players the shared spaces of the game feel lively in a way that more cramped quarters wouldn't, I mean, load into Limsa and you'll almost definitely feel overwhelmed the first couple of times from all the idlers stretched across that wide open space around the Aetherite. Also the ambient crowd noises it plays when there's a critical mass of players is excellent, although I'll hear that Miqo'te laughter in my nightmares until I'm old and gray. does anyone else use headphones? a lot of the stock crowd noises repeat every 30 seconds and some of the recorded phrases are actually audible, and one of those phrases is a lady going "I bet you're recording this" every 30 seconds, over and over again, ANYWHERE there is a crowd, for as long as there is a crowd.
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Mar 2, 2024 05:51
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I don't roll headphones but i play with the volume quite up, and i have studio monitors and a big subwoofer (hence my love for Foul - it has the most wonderfully rattly sub-bass hit). There are a lot of things going on in ambient audio
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Mar 2, 2024 06:50
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Level 27, getting antsy with this MSQ. I understand the story is a Slow Burn and I'm not necessarily opposed to that, but the quests of this slow burn story are just... nothing. A general "interaction" button press at the glowing thing, a fight that is just mashing attack spell until they are dead, reading some dialogue. Nice job, go back and report to the quest giver. Over and over. I think my biggest problem is that the battles are straight up boring right now. Fun combat can sustain a game and early game FFXIV combat ain't it. The dialogue isn't badly written, but it's so entirely forgettable so far and it's not like I have any dialogue choices to make to spice the interactions up.
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Mar 2, 2024 07:02
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Yeah, not gonna sugarcoat it but it's pretty rough going for a decent chunk of ARR. While a lot of the core gameplay of the quests remain the same (ie. about as simple as you see here), the framing and context for the quests at least get more compelling.
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Mar 2, 2024 07:14
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AndrewP posted:I think my biggest problem is that the battles are straight up boring right now. Fun combat can sustain a game and early game FFXIV combat ain't it. The dialogue isn't badly written, but it's so entirely forgettable so far and it's not like I have any dialogue choices to make to spice the interactions up. My usual advice is to keep going until the L35-L40 main quests, if you can be arsed. It'll show some slightly more varied mechanics & bosses and the story will have time to zig once or twice. It'll still be simple stuff, but you should have a better grasp of where they're eventually aiming. You'll also get to play through some real stinker plot sections where the devs find the most thinly-veiled reasons to send you around their maps. The Great Filter sections of the game that make people drop out tend to be around L30 and at L50, for what it's worth. If at that (or any!) point you think "this fundamentally sucks and I will never vibe with the core mechanics of this game or the structure of this narrative", well, you're probably right. If instead you think "this is kinda plodding, I wish the story had more punch and the pace of gameplay was faster" then there's reason to think those things will happen. Since your main concern is combat then you might want to try out another class/job, but to be honest none of them are all that exciting at level 30. Some are definitely better than others though: I wouldn't suggest anyone level as primarily Lancer/Dragoon or, worse, Conjurer/White Mage in ARR. Pugilist/Monk is the first of the melees to feel reasonably complete, Archer/Bard is very simple but very strong and mobile early on, and Arcanist/Summoner had a recent redesign & is relatively coherent at low levels. It's true that the game gets better after [%time], but life's too short to play video games that you don't enjoy.
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Mar 2, 2024 08:27
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I wish there was another thing like Palace of the Dead that let you just immediately get your full max level kit so you can see if you vibe with a given job - or the game in general, really. Because man, ARR gameplay is fuckin' rough.
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Mar 2, 2024 08:45
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There aren't any dynamic jumps like level 1 to 60, but other deep dungeons and bozja do allow you skip 10 levels to try out later game kit. You just have to have a class at the requisite level to unlock them unfortunately.
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Mar 2, 2024 09:02
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GilliamYaeger posted:I wish there was another thing like Palace of the Dead that let you just immediately get your full max level kit so you can see if you vibe with a given job - or the game in general, really. Because man, ARR gameplay is fuckin' rough. Honestly, for someone in the mid-twenties doldrums wondering if the combat gets better, Palace of the Dead might be a thing to try -- I think it opens up at like level 20, and lets you give classes a spin up to 60, with bosses that are a bit harder than the ones the ARR MSQ throws at you. Still nothing like the 60+ game, but much better than the ARR MSQ for showing you what jobs can do.
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Mar 2, 2024 11:17
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Xerophyte posted:If at that (or any!) point you think "this fundamentally sucks and I will never vibe with the core mechanics of this game or the structure of this narrative", well, you're probably right. If instead you think "this is kinda plodding, I wish the story had more punch and the pace of gameplay was faster" then there's reason to think those things will happen. I'm not sure which one of these I'm at. I do think the quests suck but I think I'm willing to stick it out to get to some fun dungeons. fun/hectic/difficult co op dungeon runs are really the draw for me I think Xerophyte posted:I wouldn't suggest anyone level as primarily Lancer/Dragoon or, worse, Conjurer/White Mage in ARR. lol welp I picked White Mage because I don't mind being a healer and I thought it'd give me shorter dungeon queues. So far the fights are Stone II > Stone II > Stone II > Stone II >>... and occasionally topping off my tank's health if I'm in a dungeon.
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Mar 2, 2024 16:34
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The MSQ will always be fetch quests, talking to people, and watching cutscenes, with the occasional dungeon or trial, which are designed to be beatable by casual players, and thus aren't terribly difficult most of the time. The story does get a lot more interesting down the road, but if you're craving more action, there's an enormous amount of side content, though the actually challenging stuff doesn't start until the end of ARR. edit: Actually Palace of the Dead can get pretty spicy, but getting to lower floors will need a pre-made group, and a lot of free time. You can save progress and come back to it, but you cannot swap out party members without resetting the run. Maximum Tomfoolery fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Mar 2, 2024 |
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Mar 2, 2024 16:53
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AndrewP posted:I'm not sure which one of these I'm at. I do think the quests suck but I think I'm willing to stick it out to get to some fun dungeons. fun/hectic/difficult co op dungeon runs are really the draw for me I think there are absolutely some higher level hectic/difficult dungeons to do but you gotta slog through the early game to get there. if you like challenging raids and such you absolutely will get to have that
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Mar 2, 2024 17:03
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| # ? May 25, 2024 18:03 |
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AndrewP posted:
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Mar 2, 2024 17:26
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