-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward |OT2| RIP Bowmage 2015-2017.
- Thread starter Ken
- Start date
- Status
RedlineRonin
Member
I just started XIV this past weekend. Got the HW bundle on the steam sale after seeing a lot of "XIV is the real XV you always wanted" comments.
Probably worth noting this is the first MMO i've ever played.
What does the content look like through level 50? I'm level 11 now; started as a Lancer and man the first 11 levels have been kind of a slog. It has been just a million "get this, go here, give it to him/her" or "go kill 5 of these, come back" type quests.
Do these give way to more meaningful content at some point? I've just finished the MSQ where you kill 8 hornets or something for some guy whose name starts with a G i think.....
I really, really want to like this game, but i come home every night after work, play for 45 mins to an hour and get bored. What am I missing? Or do i just need to keep plowing to get to some good stuff?
Probably worth noting this is the first MMO i've ever played.
What does the content look like through level 50? I'm level 11 now; started as a Lancer and man the first 11 levels have been kind of a slog. It has been just a million "get this, go here, give it to him/her" or "go kill 5 of these, come back" type quests.
Do these give way to more meaningful content at some point? I've just finished the MSQ where you kill 8 hornets or something for some guy whose name starts with a G i think.....
I really, really want to like this game, but i come home every night after work, play for 45 mins to an hour and get bored. What am I missing? Or do i just need to keep plowing to get to some good stuff?
The early game is indeed a bit of a slog, and I'm hoping they introduce some jump potions with Stormblood so new players don't have to be subjected to it.
As the game goes, the story gets more compelling, your class gains more abilities and thus combat gets more interesting, and more kinds of content become accessible. I'd say the main game proper doesn't really even start until level 15 or so, and doesn't really open up until 50.
RedlineRonin
Member
Hmmm, I can certainly push through to level 15 and see what happens there. If it doesn't open up until Level 50, do i even dare ask how many hours are between here and there? I'm fine putting the game down and picking it up at Stormblood if there are plans to accelerate people through the early levels.
I'm okay too if the story MSQ stuff picks up at some point. It is just impossible to keep my attention with what the game is throwing right now. I'm literally skipping through dialogue just so i can see the duty or w/e it's called pop up on the right with where I need to go and what things do i need to get/kill.
Not a fantastic first impression, but I'll keep going in small spurts probably
I did same but honestly it not interesting til Titan fight and get more moves with being lancher. If want keep skipping no issue really not missing much with early dialogue
RedlineRonin
Member
When is the Titan fight? I kinda don't care about spoilers for this game....
IIRC Titan is at around level 30 or so. A bit into the story after the Ifrit fight.
Hydrophobic
Member
Titan is level 34.
RedlineRonin
Member
Cool. Well, if y'all say those are worth stickin' around for, i'll keep truckin. I am getting jealous walking around the starting area (again, something with a G. Gridania?) seeing all the dope looking Dragoons with their cool armor. Reminds me of Aranea from XV. Definitely want some of that armor.
Yeah it's rough. I was just doing FATEs and stuff and sometimes I would switch class forget to put WM back on. I'm like: well, this isn't so bad after all... oh. Still Empyrial Arrow is pretty rad.
It's better when you get some dungeons and guildhests to do. Just chaining MSQ fetch quests would be pretty dull. Maybe try mixing it up with doing other things. If you've tried the group content and still not feeling it well...
Edit: don't know whether to tell you this but the Titan fight is
preceded by literally the worse MSQ spam in the whole game.
Ask suzu and Ken what to expect from my PvP AST if you want me to solo heal.
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
Why would we need more healing when we have Jayhawk's pro astrologenji.
竜神の剣を喰らえ！
RedlineRonin
Member
What is "group content"?
I've pretty much just been alternating between the MSQs and side quest "duties" (which admittedly, have been far bigger offenders of the "go here, get this" stuff than the MSQs have been)
UtterlyPerplexed
Member
Anything that involves being in a party, so guildhests, dungeons, trials, raids, etc.
ARR's a slog. I don't blame you one bit for being woefully unimpressed at Square Enix's idea of quest design. I simply had to force my way through it, made worse by the fact that the plot grinds to a halt so often just to send you off on wild goose chases. I'm hard-pressed to say I ever found the story engaging until maybe Patch 2.4 onward...
RedlineRonin
Member
Can I do any of the group content at lvl 12?
Dandy Crocodile
Member
You unlock it as you progress through the story. You'll have your first guildhest very soon.
Lunafreya Nox Fleuret
Member
lollllllll..... now I see what they are using.
RedlineRonin
Member
Cool. Thanks for all the help guys and girls .
Unknown Soldier
Member
Anybody remembers the cheapest pre-order price for HW last time?
Wondering if there's going to be something else that's cheaper before buying
Hikami
Member
Hope this sticks around for a few more days. Can't buy it yet.
It was $30/$45 the weekend before launch at GMG.
Having an European account and living abroad is the worst.
To buy Stormblood on the PSN I'll have to buy European PSN credit, which isn't as easily accessible as the US one.
To buy the game on the PC I'll have to use cdkeys or some other reseller, because if nothing has changed, the SE eStore can't be used from outside Europe.
To buy Stormblood on the PSN I'll have to buy European PSN credit, which isn't as easily accessible as the US one.
To buy the game on the PC I'll have to use cdkeys or some other reseller, because if nothing has changed, the SE eStore can't be used from outside Europe.
paging kagari
I want to die.
Finished Coil with enough groups unsync (since everyone is running it for WT). Took more time finding parties than playing outside T9 which took a while to get a party where everyone knew what to do and could do it right.
Overall, I thought the story for Binding of Coil was...just alright. I definitely don't think it's one of the high story points so far prior to HW. I liked Crystal Tower's story much better with Noah and
and all that. I actually thought Crystal Tower's story was the most FF story arc in the game to date. Felt like it could've been it's own 6-8 hour AA downloadable rpg.
I think Coil is ruined a bit in the same way the 2.0 MSQ final two dungeons are with the issue of having cutscenes throughout the dungeon. When I played World of Darkness which was like lvl.50 sync average item level 110, it was perfect difficulty with everyone between 110-130 so slightly overpowered but nothing crazy and balanced by weaker players. Wipes are common enough that everyone needs to learn the mechanics somewhat, work together along the way and do it right and it's satisfying when you win as a party. The cutscenes were at the beginning before going in and at the end after finishing. So it was just this great epic challenging stage, some good loot and you get to watch and enjoy the story along the way. Very satisfying and fun. Oh and it's simple and easy to use df and get in.
Otoh, Coil is like skip cutscenes, have no idea what is going on, burn through everything in 5 mins unsync without even learning mechanics because impossible to find sync parties anymore and unsync + echo everything is just burn outside T9, lots of time spent in pf finding parties even unsync between turns, then go back and watch the cutscenes in the inn and figure out what was going on out of context...it's a real mess and not particularly satisfying and it probably hurts the overall story of the quest even if the story itself is ok. Yeah, Coil, more than the final 2.0 dungeons, really convinced me that cutscenes should never go in dungeons, only before dungeons start and after the dungeon ends. I've been watching videos of Coil playthrough when it first came out and I can imagine it was much more satisfying and an enjoyable experience then, but what they've done to it and pretty much ruined the experience for new players now.
Overall, I thought the story for Binding of Coil was...just alright. I definitely don't think it's one of the high story points so far prior to HW. I liked Crystal Tower's story much better with Noah and
Nero and the Allegan clones
I think Coil is ruined a bit in the same way the 2.0 MSQ final two dungeons are with the issue of having cutscenes throughout the dungeon. When I played World of Darkness which was like lvl.50 sync average item level 110, it was perfect difficulty with everyone between 110-130 so slightly overpowered but nothing crazy and balanced by weaker players. Wipes are common enough that everyone needs to learn the mechanics somewhat, work together along the way and do it right and it's satisfying when you win as a party. The cutscenes were at the beginning before going in and at the end after finishing. So it was just this great epic challenging stage, some good loot and you get to watch and enjoy the story along the way. Very satisfying and fun. Oh and it's simple and easy to use df and get in.
Otoh, Coil is like skip cutscenes, have no idea what is going on, burn through everything in 5 mins unsync without even learning mechanics because impossible to find sync parties anymore and unsync + echo everything is just burn outside T9, lots of time spent in pf finding parties even unsync between turns, then go back and watch the cutscenes in the inn and figure out what was going on out of context...it's a real mess and not particularly satisfying and it probably hurts the overall story of the quest even if the story itself is ok. Yeah, Coil, more than the final 2.0 dungeons, really convinced me that cutscenes should never go in dungeons, only before dungeons start and after the dungeon ends. I've been watching videos of Coil playthrough when it first came out and I can imagine it was much more satisfying and an enjoyable experience then, but what they've done to it and pretty much ruined the experience for new players now.
Pretty sure the answer is yes. The "EU" data center was actually hosted in Canada at the same complex as the NA data center till Oct 2015 and one common complaint was the high latency causing issues. Attacks would feel sluggish and aoes were harder to avoid cause of the high ping. Pretty sure most of those issues went away for people playing in EU after they moved the servers to an EU site.
There's one for every Final Fantasy!
Okay no wonder you're going crazy. I would seriously stop doing the side quests. They are absolute rubbish. Just do MSQ and any side quests with the + symbol only. There are so many other ways to get XP like: FATEs, challenge log, hunting log, leve quests and all the other group content people have already mentioned.
Lanrutcon
Member
Oh yeah. Expect about a 1/3 more latency, easily.
Titan Ex turns into a fucking nightmare when you have less than half a second to react.
Mhh, that sucks. Wanted to join the GAF Free Company on Ultros. But looks like that would be ~130ms vs ~20ms now (according to a ping to the datacenters). I think it's better for me to stay on Cerberus.
ok so i'm looking at it right now and it's 17% instead of 18%
yeah i know it's just 1% difference, but still money is money
anybody knows if 18% is coming back?
Ah shit, I didn't know about this. I'm in EU playing on Ultron only because that's where our FC is.
I'm not sure why you gave up on your plan to run it synced. Just because only 2 people on here responded doesn't mean you couldn't have found a whole party from across the data center. It just would have taken some time. I can usually bring 2 or 3 lalafells with me to anything.
It's a shame because I think Coil is probably the best thing from any Final Fantasy ever. But, because of the transient nature of MMO's it's a limited time thing. It will never be like it was on release again where it took days/weeks/months of work to beat those battles. It made getting those cutscenes really rewarding. It seems like we won't even have something like this in FFXIV anymore since they've introduced the normal mode for raids now.
Xion_Stellar
People should stop referencing data that makes me feel uncomfortable because games get ported to platforms I don't like
Even since 2.2 I was questioning how Square-Enix was going to address the Power Creep that alot of MMOs suffer from but the thing is that they weren't able to do something good about it.
Sure they have attempted to mitigate the issue by making old content relevant through various means (Pre raid requirements,Relic Weapons, Roulettes,MSQs,SSQs,WT) but ultimately those are just temporary windows that won't last too long and this Power Creep issue that makes old content irrelevant will become more apperant and bigger with each new content update. Of course this is a shame because I have wonderful memories of clearing content in 2.X that new players will never experience in the same way.
creid
Member
Keep in mind that if you want to watch the cutscenes as you play the last 2 dungeons, and if you want to actually participate in all of the boss fights, you should go in with a premade party. If you just go in in DF, everyone else will either be running ahead and doing the dungeon while you watch cutscenes, or will force you to skip the cutscenes.
Pyros_Eien
Member
Have to remember, until that one patch where they actually added Euro servers(which was after Heavensward release, like 3.1 or 3.2 I think?), every euro played on the same servers as the US, and yet people cleared titan ex and such back in the days just fine(and that was before they fixed some stuff that made it less shit in 2.1 or 2.2 or whatever).
There is lag for sure, but the game's speed is such that it's nothing you can't play through. The main annoyance was Ninja mantras and chaining oGCD abilities(like bard opener nonsense) but I think they made some changes in 3.5 to help with that more? Mantras already got a change in the past too I believe.
So overall it's not a large issue, but if you want the absolute best performance then yeah US servers are laggier, especially if you're like eastern europe. From western europe, you kinda get 90-120ping which is reasonable for this type of game(unless Telia is fucked then you get 400ping and 30%packet loss unless you have a VPN, but that happens to US players too when Level3 is on fire/not caring).
I have been skipping dungeon cut scenes anyway when I'm in parties and watching them when the mission is over from the journals at the inns.
creid
Member
Ah, OK. Just know what you're getting into - the last 2 dungeons have much longer cutscenes throughout than anything before it.
RedlineRonin
Member
Cool. I just finished one of the Lancer specific ones with the +, which at least had a couple cutscenes and a little bit more background. What's special about the + quests?
I mean, that's one way to do it, but not the only way. The ability the lolfaceroll things with no mechanics is basically mandatory to appease the chunk of the playerbase that doesn't like the idea of failing something, but the game does give you a number of ways to control your experience.
There was a guy in PF on Monday who wanted to do old Coil for the story. He'd been posted for a while and was alone. I joined, asked if he was okay with unsynched, and when he confirmed he was pulled in a WAR and we went and took him through 1-7 before he had to go to bed/we would have had to find another body for some of the autowipe stuff in 8-10.
It's not the original Coil experience, but it was a pretty good balance between seeing most of the fight mechanics and not actually having to deal with levelsynced PUGs wiping over and over. He got to get Divebombed into a wall and blow up to Twisters, get eaten by Rafflesia, and we all got to experience the high-stakes game of tag that is trying to do T7 with somebody going in blind who doesnt know what Voice and Shriek are.
He got to see cutscenes in context, it was fun watching somebody react to a bunch of stuff that is really, really old hat for the first time. I am actually pretty bummed it was cross-server because getting him through the rest of the turns would have been fun. I 100% believe everyone's first T13 needs to be either synched or a max of three people, because the back half of that fight is the best coordination of music and combat in the game and burning past it removes some of the moments that still seem pretty epic today.
I think my roundabout point is: The way things are for Coil right at this second are actually pretty cool. You can sync 8man for an approximation of what things kind of were. You can unsync 8 to just faceroll everything if you just want to unlock cutscenes. You can unsync with relatively few bodies or really bad gear (two man T5 only you replace your left side armor with AF1) to make the fights last long enough to see everything without having to go full learning the whole fight. Players have a lot of control over their Coil experience now, and the flexibility is great.
- Status