Rising_Hei
Member
I'm not talking about being slow avoiding AOE, what i mean is ignoring totally the mechanic, doing like it doesnt exist.
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Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT| Raiders of the Void Ark
- Thread starter Trojita
- Start date
I'm not talking about being slow avoiding AOE, what i mean is ignoring totally the mechanic, doing like it doesnt exist.
TatteredHat
Member
I just finished the 2.1 main quests, it was okay at best towards the end but most of it was sidequest level stuff. 2.2 looks to be a bit better, I can only hope it stays that way.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Yeah, those people get the boot unless it's a learning party, and even then if they ignore advice/instructions they get the blowout
LOL.
Like in the middle of the arena?
Gawd dang...Did you guys purposely left a few adds up to see what would happen?
But it would be a week to week thing running it once. Not running the exact same thing 8 times over.
The Red Wizard
Member
Is anyone playing on Cerberus? I'd like to join a Free Company to get a mount but I'd prefer to join one with some Gaffers, if possible.
You get the mount from the grand company. Follow the quest and it should be easy.
As far as I remember the only main scenario that requires you do old dungeons is 2.1.
If you haven't played the game for two years though, is it really so objectionable to do old content?
The Red Wizard
Member
Ah, I mixed up the requirements. Thank you.
Thanks to the number of AST and DRK, queues for low level roulette are usually under 5 minutes. With the added armory bonus, it's a perfect time to level up an alt - you basically get 1 level per a dungeon run, even without the roulette bonus.
Got my ARC from 21 or so to 28 in a few runs.
Got my ARC from 21 or so to 28 in a few runs.
BlazingDarkness
Member
Haha I have just experienced all of that too. Doesn't help that they throttle all of the experience gained from quests (from 25k to 4) and any interesting dungeons offer no experience at all, so suddenly levelling through the mid 50s is very slow. It really feels like they were using old stuff to pad it out, but this Yugiri stuff at least seems more interesting so far.
Just took a pause from crafting to actually finish the game.
This is the most Final Fantasy thing i've played since FFIX.
Heavensward's storyline was very, very good. A massive improvement over ARR. I just wish they had a better budget for ingame cutscenes : (
This is the most Final Fantasy thing i've played since FFIX.
Heavensward's storyline was very, very good. A massive improvement over ARR. I just wish they had a better budget for ingame cutscenes : (
RellyRell28
Banned
So the ISP for the servers are performing maintenance tomorrow. I hope this fixes the instance lag spikes I keep having since I don't have internet problems outside of this game.
Yes? I'm exactly the type of player the welcome back to eorzea campaign is targetted at. New expansions are times for people to come check out the game again, putting absurd barriers to that in place makes literally no sense.
I don't think anyone objects to not missing the major story aspects, but 99% of it is fluff. I mean you're talking about probably more than a month's worth of gameplay for your average gamer just to get up to content they may have already paid for (Heavensward). That's extremely poor design. I spent something like 7 hours last night doing the 2.1 content and only the very beginning and last...hour? were either important or interesting or fun. Scions want to move, Gridania needs the moogle king dealt with, new primal instance YAY, scions move. That's all that needed to happen.
I've never seen an MMO that FORCED you to do the story content that you weren't compelled enough to do as it was coming out (if I had been I'd have resubbed each patch). I'm the type of player that would want to see it eventually anyway, but if I want to buy heavensward and just do that, by all means let me. Let me get the new classes and get to 60, run some dungeons, get some gear, etc. More efficiently design the Main Scenario quests to accomodate that if you're going to force them, make the rest side shit. People that are starved for content during those patch cycles will still do it.
This was my big pause when they were saying you needed 2.55 completed to access ALL of the Heavensward content. I think it was a huge misstep because, like you said, you're still hours away from accessing any content you purchased the game to play. I think it's a very poorly designed system and while yes, this is a story driven MMO, there should be an option for returning players to get like a cutscene or a recap or something, skip all that junk, and get right to Ishgard.
I don't think the barriers are absurd, I think you're overexaggerating the issues. Sure, a lot of 2.1 to 2.5 patch story is fluff and filler. But you've gone through one patch and you're making a huge stink about nothing, saying you had to repeat dungeons (just one) and old content (2 guildhests, which take less than 15 minutes if you're not a dps).
I don't doubt that to an extent, the story quests are a barrier. But they are not so grievous and painful that it is forcing you to play through majority of old content before you can approach new content. Heavensward is only new content relative to everyone who stayed subbed through the patches, since you weren't here patches 2.1 to 2.5 are actually new for you. It doesn't even take that long to catch up in the story; other players who haven't been around since the early patches have cleared the patch story content in under a week. So no, it isn't more than a month's worth of story quests. Most of us who played the patches as they came out could complete each patch story in a few hours; average gamer could do it in a day or two.
I think you're irritated that you can't start at the same point other people who went through all the patches start at, but to begin with you are already starting behind everyone else, why not just play at a leisurely pace and not get so mad about doing content that is old for everyone else but new for you? For the matter, why shouldn't they try to include more content for the people who stay subbed rather than for people who come back only for expansions? Just because we would be "starved for content and do the side shit" anyway?
I don't expect the trend to continue after Heavensward given the enormous bulk of story content that happens by the end of the expansion. However, the way they conceived of the story for the patches from the start is that it will lead up to and directly link to Heavensward. I believe that they're thinking about how to improve the next round.
People complain that this MMO is too much like WoW, and then when it does something different other people complain that it's not like the other MMOs out there. How peculiar.
Also, the welcome back to Eorzea campaign is targeted not only at people who come back, but also at people who are likely to stay. Since you hadn't even stayed for one patch, you aren't exactly the type of player they're gunning for.
Having strong story content isn't something people complain about though, it's the sole major strength of the game (much like SWTOR), the problem is that it's shoved down your throat at times that it would be best suited not doing so. You can say I'm overexaggerating it all you like, but the simple truth is that they're selling an expansion that it takes dozens of hours of grinding simply to catch up to being able to play. If the story is compelling I will eventually do it anyway, but meanwhile the people I'd like to play with are off doing stuff I am artificially blocked from doing. The stuff I'm being forced to do is 90% tedium (Thusfar the second patch is significantly more interesting, I'm doing it as we speak. That said i've been up doing it for an hour and a half straight and have fought precisely 2 mobs and teleported probably 20+ times just to click on an NPC and teleport right back out).
It is simply never a good decision to lock people out of something so basic in this type of game. People criticize this decision because it's asinine, the game has several things that set it apart from wow despite how similar they are - that doesn't mean anything that is different is a positive. In wow the story is front and center the past several expansions, but if you buy Warlords and want to skip Mists they don't do anything to stop you from doing it, hell you can skip all of the story entirely, nobody sits there and begs for them to force you to do every patch worth of content, if you're compelled by the plot and the game you'll go do it on your own. That would hold just as true here.
I might as well not have bought the expansion at all - it's going to take me most of this month's playtime just to catch up (You call it trivial, but unless the later patches are ridiculously shorter you're looking at over 20 hours to get all 5 of them done). That's piss-poor planning.
I didn't even come into this thread to turn into a bitch fest, but I find it mind-boggling that anyone would defend design decisions like this. Like, if I hadn't already paid 30 bucks for the expansion, I would have just quit again. This is that tedious.
Edit 2: http://imgur.com/a/EaU9T An album to illustrate what virtually every step of this has been like. I know you said you were subbed this whole time, so maybe you forgot about the riveting adventures of picking up a box for a guy and then clicking glowing things on the floor and then playing hide and seek and then perfuming a chocobo. I know now why you say this stuff, I would NEVER comprehend the plot of Heavensward were I not exposed to this first.
Seriousness, it would be one thing if this were all truly relevant, but almost none of it is. Thusfar patch 2 I can sum up as "Refugees escaped from the east after upheaval over the garlean succession. Uldah denies them safe haven, so we accept them to Revenant's Toll" and it's taken almost 2 hours to get that far into it and I've talked to COUNTLESS npcs that merely told me one line of dialogue or had me do one tedious 'pick up a scale' type quest and then immediately leave and go back to where I just was. The first patch was even worse than that in this regard. To act like this is critical and I would be doing myself a disservice to skip it if I could is basically stockholm syndrome level deluded. That entire Album's worth of content could be removed and it wouldn't change a thing, not even the atmosphere of the lore, nothing.
Stay strong, mate. It's pretty rough but it does honestly get a lot better.
Kenzodielocke
Banned
Guys, I think I am going to jump back in, where can I get cheap 60 days ? My account is EU.
Sorry if it's a bit OT.
Sorry if it's a bit OT.
On the bright side, you'll be a lot higher level when you DO get into Heavensward compared to those of us who didn't get any EXP when doing all that stuff.
On the bright side, you'll be a lot higher level when you DO get into Heavensward compared to those of us who didn't get any EXP when doing all that stuff.
Check my screenshots, I'm about 25% through the 2.0-3.0 stuff and I'm like 30% into a level. You'd almost certainly level faster doing Heavesward stuff I've got to assume. sadly
Just makes it feel all the more silly.Just finished HW storyline.
It was good, the pacing was better than the ARR and it was a fun ride.
"Storywise" alone it was good too, better than ARR, but expected a little more reading the hype about it.
The villains are still lacking and
Final fight was pretty awesome, although easy. It sure needs an EX mode, as people says.
Now, onto the real grind.
It was good, the pacing was better than the ARR and it was a fun ride.
"Storywise" alone it was good too, better than ARR, but expected a little more reading the hype about it.
The villains are still lacking and
it annoys me how much friggin Ascians are everywhere: behind Allags (Bahamut stuff), behind some dragos (again, Bahamut stuff), behind the Pope... they're so fucking lame and boring IMO, and the're everywhere it seems.
Thanks god Nidhogg is back, he's the most interesting villain in HW so far. I just hope they don't cheese Einstien like the Uldah lala.
Thanks god Nidhogg is back, he's the most interesting villain in HW so far. I just hope they don't cheese Einstien like the Uldah lala.
Final fight was pretty awesome, although easy. It sure needs an EX mode, as people says.
Now, onto the real grind.
BlazingDarkness
Member
Check my screenshots, I'm about 25% through the 2.0-3.0 stuff and I'm like 30% into a level. You'd almost certainly level faster doing Heavesward stuff I've got to assume. sadly
Yeah, the actual 2-3.0 quests are giving pretty much no exp, but I'm still dungeon running which isn't too bad, I'll probably be at 60 when I reach HW.
I know people who were at 54 I think by the time they got to Heavensward, there's a lot of quests on the way there and 4k exp per quest does add up eventually.Check my screenshots, I'm about 25% through the 2.0-3.0 stuff and I'm like 30% into a level. You'd almost certainly level faster doing Heavesward stuff I've got to assume. sadly
And running your roulettes each day (you should unlock high-level roulette if you haven't already) by the time you get there you should have a headstart on EXP and can probably avoid the falloff of EXP at 57-58 since you'll have entered Heavensward at a higher level than most of us.That's surely almost all dungeon xp, which you can get either way. Most of mine was from the qarn I had to do.I know people who were at 54 I think by the time they got to Heavensward, there's a lot of quests on the way there and 4k exp per quest does add up eventually.
I understand the "I wanna play with all the other people!" argument but at the same time, I came into this game in 2.2 when there weren't so many gates everywhere and I still had to endure a few weeks of listening to people in FC chat talk about all the new stuff they were doing while I was... well, leveling.
The Illiterati
Member
You're going to be wasting a ton of exp. I did the whole MSQ straight through and all side quests and had zero repeated content. I never did a roulette. I don't see the point when that's what I'm going to have to do for my second+ character.
I find it silly that you're complaining about how much time and effort it's taking you to do the story, but meanwhile you're taking the time to take screenshots of a quest and upload it to a gallery and write a lengthy post complaining about how it takes really long for you to do one quest. Did it take you as long to actually pick up a box?
In a sense the story of 2.1 to 2.5 encompasses a game-length story itself. I don't deny that the quests and pacing can be better. But picking up boxes in ARR and Heavensward is no less time consuming and vapid than picking up boxes in a patch quest, so what is the difference between a fetch quest in ARR and a fetch quest in the patches? Because one is 'game story' and the other is 'patch story'? Dozens of hours of grinding aren't needed to reach the expansion; you said yourself it takes over 20 hours to get the patch story done, but you don't have to grind levels to be able to do the next quest in the storyline. What are you grinding? Supposing that you can average playing 2 hours a day, it'll take you 10 days to get to Heavensward, and then you have 20 days to do Heavensward content if you are staying subbed for only a month. That's when you have to grind, not in the patches.
I'm not defending the decision to make patch story a requirement for expansion content. What I'm finding objectionable is the fact that you clearly easily cleaned out 2.1, but then complained strenuously about how much time you spent doing it. You're subbed for a month! The patch stories will take you just a week even if you're that pressed for time, and the Heavensward story will give you another week and a half, two if you can't play much. You will actually still have additional time left in your subbed month to do the limited end game content that's available now. You're probably unlikely to resub. So what's the rush? If your friends were playing ahead of you, they'll be present to play with you by the time you reach Heavensward, just better geared. Nothing major released in July except maybe Rocket League; nothing major is coming out in August.
I personally don't think SE will continue requiring previous story completion to do expansion content in the future. But to make a fuss about how long it takes to do patch story when it really doesn't take that long is bizarre, because it's apparently not taking you that long.
I'll just say that I'm really enjoying the post-2.0 content. Highly enjoying all the trials and dungeons on the main story path. The majority of my high level dungeon content has gone unplayed, so much content in this game.
Also I've progressed further in the story and reached some big things that happened, about to do Steps of Faith now.
Midgardsormr has become an even bigger asshole in my eyes.
Also I've progressed further in the story and reached some big things that happened, about to do Steps of Faith now.
Midgardsormr has become an even bigger asshole in my eyes.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
There is just a wall that machinists can't get over with their current treatment
Mustadio weeps
Mustadio weeps
I might have said this before, but I'm a bit surprised about some of the complaints regarding locking the HW content behind the 2.x story.
Don't get me wrong, most story quests are a tedious busywork and I seriously thing that they should've been reworked and shortened at least a bit when releasing HW, because of the amount of unnecessary padding.
That said, if you want access to HW to check out the new dungeons - 2.x has a lot of them, which you, the player who stopped playing after hitting 50/one of the patches, haven't seen.
Same with primal battles. Sure, HW Ravana is fun, but why would you want to skip battles with classic FF series summons which were added later in 2.x and require story to unlock?
What I want to say, that people are getting angry, but what they are doing (aside from warping between NPCs) is enjoying new content. HW isn't really that different in this regard, because you'll still be running between NPCs, only this time in new areas.
And one last thing - SE announced in advance that clearing the 2.x story will be required, so you should've done it earlier, instead of acting all surprised now.
Don't get me wrong, most story quests are a tedious busywork and I seriously thing that they should've been reworked and shortened at least a bit when releasing HW, because of the amount of unnecessary padding.
That said, if you want access to HW to check out the new dungeons - 2.x has a lot of them, which you, the player who stopped playing after hitting 50/one of the patches, haven't seen.
Same with primal battles. Sure, HW Ravana is fun, but why would you want to skip battles with classic FF series summons which were added later in 2.x and require story to unlock?
What I want to say, that people are getting angry, but what they are doing (aside from warping between NPCs) is enjoying new content. HW isn't really that different in this regard, because you'll still be running between NPCs, only this time in new areas.
And one last thing - SE announced in advance that clearing the 2.x story will be required, so you should've done it earlier, instead of acting all surprised now.
the_sun_king
Member
You're near the end of A Realm Reborn, so enjoy the end of the base game and the beginning of the expansion! (I'm assuming you bought Heavensward, correct me if I'm wrong.)
The Illiterati
Member
I might have said this before, but I'm a bit surprised about some of the complaints regarding locking the HW content behind the 2.x story.
Don't get me wrong, most story quests are a tedious busywork and I seriously thing that they should've been reworked and shortened at least a bit when releasing HW, because of the amount of unnecessary padding.
That said, if you want access to HW to check out the new dungeons - 2.x has a lot of them, which you, the player who stopped playing after hitting 50/one of the patches, haven't seen.
Same with primal battles. Sure, HW Ravana is fun, but why would you want to skip battles with classic FF series summons which were added later in 2.x and require story to unlock?
What I want to say, that people are getting angry, but what they are doing (aside from warping between NPCs) is enjoying new content. HW isn't really that different in this regard, because you'll still be running between NPCs, only this time in new areas.
And one last thing - SE announced in advance that clearing the 2.x story will be required, so you should've done it earlier, instead of acting all surprised now.
They want to be at the end of the "terrible" content so they can complain about having nothing to do like the rest of the "hardcore" fans.
The story is actually good unlike most of the pre-3.0 stuff. Makes a pretty big difference, or did for me at least.
Mr Nash
square pies = communism
I just skipped most of the cut scenes in the game eventually. Sure, I still had to do the tedious gofer quests in the main scenario, but jumping past the cut scenes helped a lot. At most, I'd just read very fast to get the gist and move on. FFXIV's story has its moments but tons of stuff didn't need to be in it. So far Heavensward hasn't felt so obnoxious about this as far as I've seen but the original game was just terrible for pacing and I can totally see why people are frustrated with it.
Yanger's argument is sound afaic. New folks being forced to plod through all of that stuff just to catch up with friends doing expansion content is going to be daunting for many, and I could well see it causing problems with retaining new players in the future especially if this design approach continues into later expansions.
Yanger's argument is sound afaic. New folks being forced to plod through all of that stuff just to catch up with friends doing expansion content is going to be daunting for many, and I could well see it causing problems with retaining new players in the future especially if this design approach continues into later expansions.
Azzurri
Member
Or they want to play with their friends, or get to fly, or you know get to play the other 3 new jobs they released.
SnakeLinkSonic
Member
I got some bad news for them if they think powering through the story is immediately going to get them to fly or that the other three jobs are even worth that much effort to begin with (at the moment anyway).
BlazingDarkness
Member
So what should I be doing now then?
Also just to clarify, I'm not complaining at all about not having access to HW content, I enjoy the story and I'm in no rush to get to endgame. My complaint was how thinly everything was spread (experience throttled, retreading old areas etc) immediately starting the patch content, it really feels like SE were trying to make something out of nothing - I was just wondering how long that quality lasts.
Also what should I be doing experience wise? I'm at level 54, should I just be sucking up these small amounts of quest exp through patch content? or doing an alt or what?
I don't see how you can argue that there's no difference between doing a few hours of tedious mind-numbing bullshit to get to the stuff everyone else is doing (how playing patches as they're released happens), and doing a few hours of tedious mind-numbing bullshit to get to the next batch of tedious mind-numbing bullshit everyone has already moved on from.
I mean, I just don't see how there's anything base objectionable in "Jesus christ I am spinning my wheels forever on this 2.x stuff".
Yes, you'll get past it eventually, but it being discouraging shouldn't be shocking or controversial.
I mean, I just don't see how there's anything base objectionable in "Jesus christ I am spinning my wheels forever on this 2.x stuff".
Yes, you'll get past it eventually, but it being discouraging shouldn't be shocking or controversial.
the_sun_king
Member
In regards to your first bit, that can be explained by the design of the game world/maps for 2.0. The maps were made smaller purposefully due to the failure of the original version of the game and the devs' streamlining for the sake of putting out 2.0 sooner rather than later. It was a conscientious decision on their part to make smaller, more detailed and differentiated zones rather than the large and repeating textures of 1.0 that offered not much to look at. Hence, the 2.x patches have you revisiting a lot of the world you've already explored in the launch story. The first patch (A Realm Awoken) admittedly is the weakest of all the patches imo; I do feel the quality goes up the closer you get to Heavensward (patches 2.4 and 2.5 in particular being the strongest).
Regarding your questions in the latter paragraph, you should indeed be sucking up all that MSQ EXP on your main battle job like you've most likely been doing. You're at lv54 so you've already got a very good head start to 60 compared to all the players who'd participated in the early access period back on the 19th last month. Alts and secondary jobs/classes can wait.
It's not 'a few hours'
I think most people who didn't unsub or didn't wait until HW was actually out lack perspective - it's like 20+ hours of bullshit you're forced to do, and you're almost by definition NOT a hardcore FF14 player if you haven't done it already. That's a lot of time to be able to do current things.
You guys try to dismiss that shit out of hand, but imagine if you resubbed to wow and had to play 10 years worth of backlog shit, nobody would EVER. EVER. do it.
Did you actually read all the words I posted?
Because I basically said there's a difference between the few hours an individual patch takes and the soul-crushing tedium that is trying to do all of the few hours back-to-back-to-back. It would help if you could differentiate between people agreeing with you and people disagreeing with you.
But hey.
I'll reiterate my previous stance and be done with it. While they could have certainly removed some of the padding, the 2.X quests aren't that daunting, and a lot of that content is fun to go through. You'll have spent more time going from 1 to 50, and will spend more time going from 50 to 60.
Again, some padding could be removed to streamline things, but this isn't really that big a hurdle. Besides, HLDR and Trial Roulette can be good sources of Exp as you're leveling, so they're probably worth unlocking.
Again, some padding could be removed to streamline things, but this isn't really that big a hurdle. Besides, HLDR and Trial Roulette can be good sources of Exp as you're leveling, so they're probably worth unlocking.