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[Moaradin]

I remember liking the Heavensward story from the beginning, but if I had to pinpoint where I started to really get into it, it would whenever

Spoiler

Iceheart

shows up and the dragon stuff comes more into focus.

I just really loved the classic final fantasy vibes I got through the whole thing. Pretty much having a 4 man party definitely helped. Hope Stormblood continues with that.

 

[duckroll]

The introductory quests were designed to split the group of people rushing through the expansion at the start of it. It was a rather clever move, as it made for the smoothest expansion launch I've ever experienced prior to Legion (which actually did the same thing to an even bigger extent).

I wonder if Stormblood will attempt something similar with Gyr Abania and Othard. That would be weird but I'm not excluding it...

Oooooooooh that does make a lot of sense. I can't imagine what it would be like at launch for everyone to be rushing into the same zone for generic hunting quests LOL.

 

[dramatis]

I guess the reasoning is that you're on the run, and the only not-stuck-up elves in Ishgard took you in, so you have to be a little more accommodating to them.

I think the "this is probably how FF could be" point in the story for me came in the Churning Mists (I think people know which part what I'm talking about, though the place also came with moogles...). However, there are parts of the story that were cool before that aka the anime boss (lol).

Coerthas Western Highlands was admittedly pretty dreary because it is that way by design, but they shuffle it with a brief excursion to Sea of Clouds, so a lot of early Heavensward was like "holy shit this is pretty" and "holy shit this map is huge" and "holy shit these guys have a lot of hp I'm actually going to die?"

 

[Bowlie]

a lot of early Heavensward was like "holy shit this is pretty" and "holy shit this map is huge"

Exactly how I felt in regards to Sea of Clouds, haha.

And the Moogles weren't bad for me; not doing any of the sidequests made that whole part end quickly.

 

[Qvoth]

So can someone tell me when Heavensward's story gets "really fucking good" because everyone says it is like sooooooooooo much better than ARR, and you know, I really believe you, but like, the start of it feels like they went right back to My First MMO, with dumbass introductory quests and you being a stupid errand runner for boring low-tier scrubs as a means to introduce you to the new areas. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

it's been a while but for me it got good when the 4 of you (won't mention who since that's spoilers territory) started going for the trip

 

[duckroll]

I regret asking the stupid question when I was really early in HW. I started playing today's session and completing the questlines for the two brothers early on totally made me see the different in the story direction. Instead of petty shit leading into nothing, both questlines started mundane but got interesting real quick and had really nice conclusions which immediately introduced major elements in the new story's setting. Lol!

 

[Chille]

WWE Has Teamed Up With FFXIV.

And it appears not to be an April 1st joke .

I am just happy they used my quote during the adverts last night

 

[Bowlie]

I got Botanist and Miner to 50, and I was ready to move on to 60 but this whole collectable system is so confusing to me. A pack of new actions and UI elements that leave me thinking "What should I do in this?" or "Should I even do this?".

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

Currently slowly leveling Machinist (lv51) and Dragoon (lv52).

After that I'll have everything I want at 60. Not that I'm going to gear them all up (just the cowboy gear for MCH) I just want to test out the new job changes and it will make them easier to get to 70 whenever I hit max with a tank and decide I want to play something else.

 

[JoeyJungle]

Maybe not the right thread for this, but I was wondering how the current state of Elder Scrolls Online compares to FFXIV? I've gotten a bit bored doing the 2.x quests and was thinking about jumping into something else for a bit, I've already got an old copy of ESO and was wondering if it was worth any time? Is there a GAF server? Should I just wait for the upcoming expansion before starting that game? I already used up the monthly trial that came with the game, quit during the character select screen after finding out the PC version didn't have controller support at that time (it's been patched in since).

 

[Haly]

I regret asking the stupid question when I was really early in HW. I started playing today's session and completing the questlines for the two brothers early on totally made me see the different in the story direction. Instead of petty shit leading into nothing, both questlines started mundane but got interesting real quick and had really nice conclusions which immediately introduced major elements in the new story's setting. Lol!

You are a dumb dumb.

 

[Squishy3]

I look forward to people fighting over quest mobs again at the launch of Stormblood and being called a "fucking casual" and to "git gud" for asking people who were the first ones to tag a quest mob to not attack it afterwards as they were guaranteed credit for the mob.

Spoiler

just give quest mobs a million HP so they require a full party to defeat in a reasonable amount of time

 

[Haly]

They should just adopt credit sharing like in fates and such.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

I look forward to people fighting over quest mobs again at the launch of Stormblood and being called a "fucking casual" and to "git gud" for asking people who were the first ones to tag a quest mob to not attack it afterwards as they were guaranteed credit for the mob.

Spoiler

just give quest mobs a million HP so they require a full party to defeat in a reasonable amount of time

I was thinking about preordering Stormblood for early access, but maybe I should wait...

 

[scy]

I no life'd 50-60 for HW and I have zero idea what that's even referring to.

 

[Haly]

I'm really enjoying the Moogle beast tribe quests. They're pretty easy to do, give a lot of crafting EXP, and they slowly change Bahrr Lehs from a bunch of ruins to a nice moogle/dragon plaza. I'm a real sucker for questlines that change the world in a persistent way.

I wish it was possible to slowly fix all of Churning Mists. I'd totally do that.

 

[Squishy3]

I no life'd 50-60 for HW and I have zero idea what that's even referring to.

It's from when everyone lumps into the starting areas in the very beginning of the expansion and are all doing the same quest and trying to get credit on the quest mobs.

It's a problem that goes away very quickly as people get further in the expac but the first ~2 hours were pretty bad.

 

[Haly]

There's the initial pack of no-lifers who get to skip all that mess because they didn't sleep. It's the people who have to follow normal life schedules who suffer the most from Day 1 expansion rush.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I don't know what would be a harder fight, Stone Cold (Extreme) or The Rock (Extreme)

Too bad Vince and Terry are currently not on speaking terms so we'll never get Hulkamania (Extreme)

So can someone tell me when Heavensward's story gets "really fucking good" because everyone says it is like sooooooooooo much better than ARR, and you know, I really believe you, but like, the start of it feels like they went right back to My First MMO, with dumbass introductory quests and you being a stupid errand runner for boring low-tier scrubs as a means to introduce you to the new areas. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

All MMOs are like this with expacs, including WoW. A lot of new players and long-time lapsed returners arrive for expacs so this is what always happens.

 

[Squishy3]

I don't know what would be a harder fight, Stone Cold (Extreme) or The Rock (Extreme)

Too bad Vince and Terry are currently not on speaking terms so we'll never get Hulkamania (Extreme)



All MMOs are like this with expacs, including WoW. A lot of new players and long-time lapsed returners arrive for expacs so this is what always happens.

Undertaker Savage, obviously. 20 minute unskippable cutscene of him walking to the arena.

 

[scy]

It's from when everyone lumps into the starting areas in the very beginning of the expansion and are all doing the same quest and trying to get credit on the quest mobs.

It's a problem that goes away very quickly as people get further in the expac but the first ~2 hours were pretty bad.

No I mean ... I don't remember any quests where a bottleneck could have occurred? Maybe I'm forgetting generic "kill X" things but most everything was instanced or spawn on arrival.

There's the initial pack of no-lifers who get to skip all that mess because they didn't sleep. It's the people who have to follow normal life schedules who suffer the most from Day 1 expansion rush.

Admittedly, this is a large part of the whole "get in hour 0" aspect. It's nice to beat the larger crowd since expansion launches are usually a shitshow anyway.

 

[the_sun_king]

Obviously, we're getting wrestling glamours. Obviously.

 

[Wilsongt]

There's the initial pack of no-lifers who get to skip all that mess because they didn't sleep. It's the people who have to follow normal life schedules who suffer the most from Day 1 expansion rush.

There were people who skipped story scenes just to start doing hunts and exteme primals before everyone else, too.

I am taking time off work and no-lifing the story in 4.0 so I can focus on more important things: Crafting and gathering.

 

[Squishy3]

No I mean ... I don't remember any quests where a bottleneck could have occurred? Maybe I'm forgetting generic "kill X" things but most everything was instanced or spawn on arrival.

There was a quest in Coerthas Western Highlands where you needed to kill deepeyes out in the field.

https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/The_First_and_Foremost

 

[Haly]

I think my plan for SB will be to stack up a ton of quests, as many as my limit would hold, and then start power leveling RDM through POTD until I get to a level where I can pop those quests.

I'm thinking Temple Levequests and level 58 quests are the best things to stockpile. It helps that I skipped almost all side quests in HW so I have a decent backlog to plunder.

 

[Squishy3]

I think my plan for SB will be to stack up a ton of quests, as many as my limit would hold, and then start power leveling RDM through POTD until I get to a level where I can pop those quests.

I'm thinking Temple Levequests and level 58 quests are the best things to stockpile. It helps that I skipped almost all side quests in HW so I have a decent backlog to plunder.

I think temple levequests don't work that way, when people were doing research for this stuff. Needs to be completed on the job you accept it on, I believe. There's plenty of secondary stuff to level RDM and SAM with though as you've got POTD, the Heavensward beast tribe quests and the Clan Hunt logs. You're only in for a serious grind if you want to do the Stormblood story on SAM/RDM.

 

[ebil]

I think temple levequests don't work that way, when people were doing research for this stuff. Needs to be completed on the job you accept it on, I believe. There's plenty of secondary stuff to level RDM and SAM with though as you've got POTD, the Heavensward beast tribe quests and the Clan Hunt logs. You're only in for a serious grind if you want to do the Stormblood story on SAM/RDM.

I can confirm this. It didn't work for MCH/DRK/AST back then.

 

[iammeiam]

I'm gonna rush cap, people are going to look down their nose and tut-tut at me for playing the game wrong, and I'm going to roll my eyes and do it anyway. At this point I know which parts of the game I find fun (completely blind content runs are one of my favorite things, and while the player base is very uptight about plot spoilers unless you're rushing first you're going to get bombarded with mechanics spoilers), and ded gaem has never been an issue spending another week on the initial leveling would have fixed.

Rushing also means once you hit the later dungeons you start seeing the same people over and over as the pool of people that high thins, and things like Hinterlands and Idyllshire felt like new and largely uncharted areas because there's nobody there.

As long as they keep the raid unlock a couple of weeks delayed, everyone gets to level however they want even if we insist on doing it wrong.

 

[Haly]

I think temple levequests don't work that way, when people were doing research for this stuff. Needs to be completed on the job you accept it on, I believe. There's plenty of secondary stuff to level RDM and SAM with though as you've got POTD, the Heavensward beast tribe quests and the Clan Hunt logs. You're only in for a serious grind if you want to do the Stormblood story on SAM/RDM.

Ah okay.

Well yeah I plan to. I don't expect to be in SB day one on an RDM though. I think I can get there in a week depending on how much they reduce the HW exp requirements.

 

[Kenai]

I feel like I know comparatively little about SB compared to HW at this time. I don't want to say it's dampering my hype but it kind of is when it's hard to be able to make any type of pre launch plans.

I can understand them maybe not wanting to spoil new class skills and stuff without the context of how the new leveling works so that people don't panic, but I was kinda hoping to at least know about our new class AF by now...

I like both AST and SCH a lot and there's not much news to help me pick one over the other at this point. I like AST play more but SCH is easier to level and might not have ugly AF this time. It doesn't matter that much since the healer queues will be instant for awhile and I'll have time to level both, but still.

Is there any event or Live Letter or anything that will reveal a bit more about these types of things before the actual launch?

 

[Squishy3]

I'm gonna rush cap, people are going to look down their nose and tut-tut at me for playing the game wrong, and I'm going to roll my eyes and do it anyway. At this point I know which parts of the game I find fun (completely blind content runs are one of my favorite things, and while the player base is very uptight about plot spoilers unless you're rushing first you're going to get bombarded with mechanics spoilers), and ded gaem has never been an issue spending another week on the initial leveling would have fixed.

Rushing also means once you hit the later dungeons you start seeing the same people over and over as the pool of people that high thins, and things like Hinterlands and Idyllshire felt like new and largely uncharted areas because there's nobody there.

As long as they keep the raid unlock a couple of weeks delayed, everyone gets to level however they want even if we insist on doing it wrong.

It's also really stupid considering how each dungeon boss really only has one or two gimmicks now that people are like "i'm going to explain the mechanics an hour after the content came out." I just kinda hope they don't reset the dungeon difficulty back to 0 at the beginning of Stormblood, it's the second expansion dammit. The current mix of dungeons actually having tankbusters and mechanics is actually nice after it just straight up being only mechanics for pretty much all of the other dungeons in 3.0.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

It's also really stupid considering how each dungeon boss really only has one or two gimmicks now that people are like "i'm going to explain the mechanics an hour after the content came out." I just kinda hope they don't reset the dungeon difficulty back to 0 at the beginning of Stormblood, it's the second expansion dammit. The current mix of dungeons actually having tankbusters and mechanics is actually nice after it just straight up being only mechanics for pretty much all of the other dungeons in 3.0.

The only time the game ever had challenging dungeons was during the original 2.0/ARR era. Everything has been set to faceroll difficulty since then.

2.0/ARR gave us things like original Qarn and original AK and original Pharos Sirius. Nothing else is even comparable.

 

[aceface]

I feel like I know comparatively little about SB compared to HW at this time. I don't want to say it's dampering my hype but it kind of is when it's hard to be able to make any type of pre launch plans.

I can understand them maybe not wanting to spoil new class skills and stuff without the context of how the new leveling works so that people don't panic, but I was kinda hoping to at least know about our new class AF by now...

I like both AST and SCH a lot and there's not much news to help me pick one over the other at this point. I like AST play more but SCH is easier to level and might not have ugly AF this time. It doesn't matter that much since the healer queues will be instant for awhile and I'll have time to level both, but still.

Is there any event or Live Letter or anything that will reveal a bit more about these types of things before the actual launch?

Prior to Heavensward we got that crazy 3 hour live letter from France which went through all the new skills for each job, I think they said that's coming up for Stormblood in May.

 

[Squishy3]

The only time the game ever had challenging dungeons was during the original 2.0/ARR era. Everything has been set to faceroll difficulty since then.

2.0/ARR gave us things like original Qarn and original AK and original Pharos Sirius. Nothing else is even comparable.

Well yeah, but Baelsar's Wall/Sohm Al (and even Xelphatol and Gubal HM) are way better than the other 3.x dungeons. The other 3.x dungeons the tanks/healers sit there trying to DPS as hard as they can while the DPS take forever to kill the bosses.

Well, outside of the elevator platform in Baelsar's. that thing sucks.

 

[scy]

Is there any event or Live Letter or anything that will reveal a bit more about these types of things before the actual launch?

It's scheduled for May. Until then, we basically know "we are adding new jobs and new skills and changing some old things."

It's also really stupid considering how each dungeon boss really only has one or two gimmicks now. I just kinda hope they don't reset the dungeon difficulty back to 0 at the beginning of Stormblood, it's the second expansion dammit. The current mix of dungeons actually having tankbusters and mechanics is actually nice after it just straight up being only mechanics for pretty much all of the other dungeons in 3.0.

I dunno, I'd say the HW launch dungeons had more to them than most the EXDR dungeons. There will always be that weird cross-section of "interesting encounters" and "but have to run it a lot " that they'll always design around.

 

[Dresden]

Started doing the beast tribe HW quests and I really like the Vath. Ambivalent about the chubby bird people.

 

[iammeiam]

Realizing you could pass prey on the first Aery boss, and that it meant the tank and DPS never had to move for the mechanic, is probably more nuance than I can think of in any EXDR dungeon encounter.

..and that's probably only because level sync means you can't outgear it enough to just eat the damage without it getting awkward.

 

[Haly]

Started doing the beast tribe HW quests and I really like the Vath. Ambivalent about the chubby bird people.

I like the chubby bird dance I wish we could get it as an emote.

 

[Tomat]

I like the chubby bird dance I wish we could get it as an emote.

Keep progressing through their daily quests.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Realizing you could pass prey on the first Aery boss, and that it meant the tank and DPS never had to move for the mechanic, is probably more nuance than I can think of in any EXDR dungeon encounter.

..and that's probably only because level sync means you can't outgear it enough to just eat the damage without it getting awkward.

Well, there's also the final boss of The Vault which had multiple mechanics including 2 people tethered together, and also a minor DPS race where you had to blow up some balls before he casts a room-wide AoE. It's possible to blow up the balls with just 1 DPS and the tank knowing how to hit the enemy with more than auto-attacks, and yes this is because of my actual experiences in Leveling Dungeon Roulette. Now that I'm mostly caught up from returning I'm never doing LDR ever again.

 

[AuthenticM]

I need help doing fates to gather crystals for the anima weapon. No one does them anymore and I can't do them alone; I get killed most of the time or it takes too long. I wouldn't bother since Stormblood is coming out in two months, but I already have many of the ingredients needed for the step after that, so I might as well continue.

 

[Dresden]

i need this mount

 

[B.K.]

I just did my first Frontlines. I have no idea what was going on.

 

[xxczx]

I just did my first Frontlines. I have no idea what was going on.

don't worry, 75% of players don't either

 

[SoundPulse]

I just did my first Frontlines. I have no idea what was going on.

That's pretty much par for the course. Frontlines is basically the screw-around-for-the-roulette-bonus pvp mode. Every now and then you'll get a team that actually communicates and you'll crush everyone else. Most of the time?

Spoiler

This guy actually did pretty okay.

 

[Squishy3]

Producer Live Letter on April 2nd.

I'm trying to find the interview/whatever this is from and I can't find it and it's driving me insane, because I know I also saw it.


If true I guess Yoshida's coming out during Wrestlemania.

 

[the_sun_king]

i need this mount

Whoa! When did they add a Sun Wukong flying cloud mount and where do you get it?!

 

[Tomat]

Whoa! When did they add a Sun Wukong flying cloud mount and where do you get it?!

Another 7-11 promotion in Japan.

 

[the_sun_king]

Another 7-11 promotion in Japan.

God damn it lol.

But, we eventually got the items in NA/EU from the previous 7-11 promotion via that Amazon deal iirc. So, should only be a matter of time for us.

 

[Lunafreya Nox Fleuret]

Just curious but has anyone tried farming a11s ever since the patch? I think I got 1 clear out of the few hours I tried this week. Man, I'm about sick of the fight now. All I wanted was to pick up the mnk pants for samurai since the gear is shared and I'll have something decent if I play it at 60. I just feel the parties are worse...