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[the_sun_king]

4:16 in the Stormblood trailer, is that a new race??

I think they're just wearing wolf masks.

 

[yami4ct]

I get that he's deeply concerned about not making people feel bad, but there's always a massive disconnect between the relative rigidity of the game they're making and the "all choices are valid!" approach they apparently want players to adopt.

I understand that attitude and it's laudable in the sense that casual players are the lifeblood of a game like this, but the solution isn't to just not teach people how to do things because they'll feel bad when they can't. The solution is to create things that go 'hey, here's how you prep for top level content' and just make it clear that the top level content isn't for everyone. It's not the kinds of players he's worried about putting off are clearing EX Primals and Alex Savage anyway.

 

[Squishy3]

Not that this will have any effect on the community whatsoever.

Yoshi also talks specifically about healer DPS in raiding as well in this newer interview. (Anything without Yoshida: before it is the interview's responses)

Yoshida: By now, I think a feeling has developed that healers have to participate in DPSing in instanced dungeons. Even if it's just a silent pressure, it is there. Because of that feeling, there were some players who may have felt anxious about joining as a healer. For someone like me who isn't focused about clear time, I'm fine as long as we can clear it. And I'll try to take things more slowly if I see someone who might be new. However, it's been getting more and more difficult for healers, which I'm sorry about. On my personal account, I play all the roles, and I like to have the feeling that I can play through instanced dungeons on my favorite role.

Since things are more serious in raiding, on the other hand, you'll definitely want to DPS for the first clear. As item levels go up and you're after repeat clears, the roles may shift. (laughs)

I see.

Yoshida: That said, sometimes when I'm participating in instanced dungeons, I'll queue as tank or healer because the matchmaking is so fast, but in the case of healer, although attacking itself isn't hard, I feel that the stance switching narrows the field of players who are interested in healing. When looking at the data, even though many players have healers at the appropriate job level, they won't be participating as healer. When considering the reasons for this, it seems that there are two main ones - it's too much work, and being asked to DPS.

There are many who feel that way.

Yoshida: So we decided to calculate healers' attack magic potency based on MND. Since you no longer need Cleric Stance, you can Holy whenever you feel like it. After stunning the enemies with Swiftcast Holy, you can then catch up with heals. With this increased level of comfort, the number of people participating in instanced dungeons as healer will definitely go up.

It certainly looks like that.

Yoshida: We consider the leveling activities like instanced dungeons and end-game content like raids separately. We'd like people to be able to use healers in a more casual sense in instanced dungeons. With that in mind, we made a point of simplifying the role. On the other hand, you're really asked to push the role in end-game content. And in reality, it's likely that you'll need to look at elements besides just healing in those situations depending on your job composition and the skill level of the members. I understand very well that there are players who enjoy and have been doing well with the stance switching to attack and immediately back to healing. However, rather than changing stances back and forth, now you can use that spare moment for other role actions you might have set. I'm not saying you'll be doing a lot more things than before with the new role actions, but that will definitely be an area where players can improve.

Using Rescue to draw an ally to your location fits that description, doesn't it?

Yoshida: In the caster role actions, one is included that allows you to transfer your MP to other party members. If your party's healer isn't good with MP management, you can give them MP from a black mage, who has an unlimited pool of MP, during phases of a battle where you can't attack. Because of that, you have some leeway with MP, and you might decide to change your role actions up on healer so you remove one with an MP recovery effect and change it to something else for the situation. Also, if you have a margin with MP you can use it for further DPS. We've also made adjustments to the MP consumption for each action to because all this talk about making it easier to DPS doesn't mean anything if you don't have the MP necessary.

So you should feel comfortable throwing out one attack here and there.

Yoshida: Yeah. You'll save a lot of time and effort without turning Cleric Stance on and off. With the addition of role actions, you'll have a number of other actions you can take instead of the stance switch, so that will be one place to demonstrate your skills.

I see.

Yoshida: It's likely to be misunderstood, but making things simple and clear is not the same as making them easier. Because things will be simpler and more easily understood, differences in skills and setups will start to appear, so a healer looking to get more active in things besides just recovering HP will really shine in those areas.

While playing, I felt like it would be important not just for healers, but also for other roles to swap role actions depending on the content. Because of that, I felt that it might be useful to have a preset function to save role actions so that you can swap more easily - do you have any plans to implement that?

Yoshida: We'll wait and see on that. I really don't know how long it would take without getting into it. With the new raid strategies, etc., that pop up, I'll wait to see the feedback.

https://www.bluegartr.com/threads/1...s-Roles-and-PvP-Famitsu-Interview-Translation

 

[R0ckman]

Damn this is bad, hour long queue because people keep dropping out of the wait.

 

[Alex]

Healers should always DPS when it is comfortable for them to do so. If you're learning something and are having to make rigid choices, its one thing, but I agree with silently judging those who AFK 75% of the time in a dang dungeon, though.

My only qualm remains that I wish healer DPS was more... support-y? Like maybe setting up some of the old XI style combos and bursts for DPS, or something. I dunno.

 

[iammeiam]

I understand that attitude and it's laudable in the sense that casual players are the lifeblood of a game like this, but the solution isn't to just not teach people how to do things because they'll feel bad when they can't. The solution is to create things that go 'hey, here's how you prep for top level content' and just make it clear that the top level content isn't for everyone. It's not the kinds of players he's worried about putting off are clearing EX Primals and Alex Savage anyway.

It's aggravating because he's used the same explanation for why there's absolutely no flexibility in gearing options or skill trees. Essentially, introducing choice creates a situation where someone can choose incorrectly, so by funneling everyone through the same system, nobody can be wrong! Except that the existence of multiple gear pieces at the same iLevel still creates a right and a wrong, just not interesting ones. It too often takes design problems and tries to pose them as player problems. Much like Gordias and Midas aren't the player's faults, it's not a new player who deserves blame for not understanding how their rotation works. But most of the time we end up fighting each other over dumb stuff we don't control anyway--the single dungeon in odd patches announcement has already started the frustration at the 1% stealing content from most of the players, but it's not like the players got input.

 

[Kenai]

The current flow of battle in this game does mean a lot of dead time for healers to be DPSing. I do prefer WoW in this regard since I never felt obligated to DPS (outside a few certain situations which were very much hammered down, like Telluric Currents on Madness of Deathwing) because there indeed was always damage going on and each class had their own little fun things to do while healing that attributed to healing better Closest comparison in this game would be AST cards and that's obviously not the same thing.

In general I don't like DPSing in 8/24 man content, but a lot of those reasons are going away, Cleric Stance latency, acc penalties and the like were a bunch of extra straws on the camel's back and if I am realistically going to be expected to DPS (and let's be real here, a lot of people will think you aren't doing what you can to help clear the content if you aren't at least some of the time), then I want to make it as smooth as possible without the clutter. let me land me DoT and throw a few nukes in between cards or a few AoEs on adds or add things like the Lord, whatever.

Other things that are annoying are still there, like the comparatively boring healer DPS "rotations" that are getting even simpler, or the sometimes erratic numbers that are totally out of your control that aren't acc based. As an example if i am actually worried about mana due to those few extra raises I had to throw out, I'm not gonna give a sh*t about my DPS. Even in a 4 man (or 24 man), there's a good chance of a lot of unnecessary damage going around that I have to take priority on. Throw in some classes being waaaay better about that than others still (SCH especially, no mana issues, faerie and other OGCD heals galore, now all penalty free) and it almost feels to me like one of those situations where I kinda want to believe they don't want to dictate too much and let people do what they want, but could also see it as an excuse to not add some real consistency/planning to anything cause they don't care enough.

 

[Interrobang]

Hi guys, another new player question for you.

Scenario: my wife just got home from work ready to slay some beastmen and level.

Problem: we set out to do some quests we had queued up (including story quests, we're level 18) and every single quest was dialogue, exposition and cutscenes. We did this for over an hour before we got fed up and turned it off for the night.

Yes, we care about the story and want to experience it, but in a case like today, is there a way for us to make ourselves available to group finder (duty finder?) and just wait to be paired with people to help them? Or did I misunderstand the purpose of duty finder? Do we have to be on the same quest or can we just queue up and play?

Thank you!

 

[Squishy3]

Hi guys, another new player question for you.

Scenario: my wife just got home from work ready to slay some beastmen and level.

Problem: we set out to do some quests we had queued up (including story quests, we're level 18) and every single quest was dialogue, exposition and cutscenes. We did this for over an hour before we got fed up and turned it off for the night.

Yes, we care about the story and want to experience it, but in a case like today, is there a way for us to make ourselves available to group finder (duty finder?) and just wait to be paired with people to help them? Or did I misunderstand the purpose of duty finder? Do we have to be on the same quest or can we just queue up and play?

Thank you!

yeah, you can queue up for the duty roulette: leveling while questing, as well as whatever highest level dungeon you have unlocked if you want to continue doing dungeons. the duty roulette: leveling also resets once a day and is typically about most of a level when factoring in the experience from the dungeon itself.

The only exception is when the quest involves entering a solo duty, in which case you'd need to cancel your duty finder queue to enter it.

 

[yami4ct]

Hi guys, another new player question for you.

Scenario: my wife just got home from work ready to slay some beastmen and level.

Problem: we set out to do some quests we had queued up (including story quests, we're level 18) and every single quest was dialogue, exposition and cutscenes. We did this for over an hour before we got fed up and turned it off for the night.

Yes, we care about the story and want to experience it, but in a case like today, is there a way for us to make ourselves available to group finder (duty finder?) and just wait to be paired with people to help them? Or did I misunderstand the purpose of duty finder? Do we have to be on the same quest or can we just queue up and play?

Thank you!

Any dungeon you play can be queued whenever and once you get a few of them, a roulette will open up that gives extra rewards and is really perfect if you just want to sit down and have a random pick up and play experience. The duty finder is exactly what you want for that. You'll still trigger cutscenes, but you can skip them and if nobody is new most people will be doing that.

 

[Aeana]

Raiding is a different beast, at least if you have a static. It's something you talk through with your group and coordinate. I offered to DPS in turn 8 of coil because it was easier for me as a scholar to do that than for our white mage, and we needed a bit of a DPS boost because we took two tanks. Still were the first group in the FC to beat it!

In general my issues are just chiefly with community attitudes. Shaming someone for doing something they don't want to do just creates a sour mood in the community. If you can communicate politely to someone why you think they should do something they're not doing, by all means do so, but for regular dungeons it's not That Serious. If it's all serious time then you should probably just put together a static group for 4 mans too so y'all can be serious time together.

This is why I actually never minded tanks just pulling lots of stuff. Here you've shifted toward giving me as the healer a lot more to do and less time to worry about having to DPS. That's great and way more fun for me. At least, it was before they started putting in those blocks to keep people from doing it as much.

 

[Interrobang]

yeah, you can queue up for the duty roulette: leveling while questing, as well as whatever highest level dungeon you have unlocked if you want to continue doing dungeons. the duty roulette: leveling also resets once a day and is typically about most of a level when factoring in the experience from the dungeon itself.

The only exception is when the quest involves entering a solo duty, in which case you'd need to cancel your duty finder queue to enter it.

How do I queue into duty finder? Also, what do you mean leveling resets? Any experience we gain during duty finder doesn't count?

 

[yami4ct]

Shaming people always sucks, yeah. I understand most people aren't in a dungeon aren't there for a leisurely clear, but if someone doesn't know what they're doing and needs help that doesn't bug me. I only get annoyed in casual dungeon content when someone does something incredibly stupid like the tank one time that kept standing in poison and dying even after our healer went 'hey maybe try moving'.

How do I queue into duty finder? Also, what do you mean leveling resets? Any experience we gain during duty finder doesn't count?

On PC, the U key opens up the duty finder. Not sure about controller. Each duty finder dungeon has a 'maximum' level so that overleveled people don't enter and just stomp everything leaving a new player to do nothing. You'll be scaled down to the max level when you enter. EXP you get in there still counts, you'll only be able to do the things you could do at the max level the dungeon scales to while inside the dungeon.

 

[Interrobang]

Any dungeon you play can be queued whenever and once you get a few of them, a roulette will open up that gives extra rewards and is really perfect if you just want to sit down and have a random pick up and play experience. The duty finder is exactly what you want for that. You'll still trigger cutscenes, but you can skip them and if nobody is new most people will be doing that.

We're only level 18 right now, we've done a few solo instances where we had to dissolve our party to enter them. For context: we just left Ul'Dah for Limsa Lominsa for the first time. I don't remember doing any flat-out dungeons yet. Does that mean we haven't unlocked duty finder yet?

 

[Guess Who]

How do I queue into duty finder? Also, what do you mean leveling resets? Any experience we gain during duty finder doesn't count?

Once you unlock dungeons or guildhests, they'll appear in the Duty Finder, which you can find in your main menu. This basically lets you matchmake to form parties for dungeons and bosses.

Once a day, you can run a "leveling roulette", which will throw you into a random leveling (as in, 1-49 or 51-59) dungeon you've unlocked, and give you an EXP and gil bonus for completing it. You can only get that bonus once a day.

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

We're only level 18 right now, we've done a few solo instances where we had to dissolve our party to enter them. For context: we just left Ul'Dah for Limsa Lominsa for the first time. I don't remember doing any flat-out dungeons yet. Does that mean we haven't unlocked duty finder yet?

Main story quests have solo instances, but they will also call on you to enter dungeons or trials with other players in order to progress.

First dungeon is at level 16.

 

[Interrobang]

Main story quests have solo instances, but they will also call on you to enter dungeons or trials with other players in order to progress.

First dungeon is at level 16.

I don't think we've ever done that. Is it story related? Do you happen to know the name of it so i can google if we missed it?

 

[yami4ct]

I don't think we've ever done that. Is it story related? Do you happen to know the name of it so i can google if we missed it?

It is story. First dungeon is called Sastasha and the quest to unlock is 'it's probably pirates' You're likely leveled a tad ahead of MSQ content right now which is fine and to be expected.

This page might help you out a fair bit in terms of finding things you might miss: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Guide:Progression_and_Level_Locked_Content

 

[duckroll]

Hi guys, another new player question for you.

Scenario: my wife just got home from work ready to slay some beastmen and level.

Problem: we set out to do some quests we had queued up (including story quests, we're level 18) and every single quest was dialogue, exposition and cutscenes. We did this for over an hour before we got fed up and turned it off for the night.

Yes, we care about the story and want to experience it, but in a case like today, is there a way for us to make ourselves available to group finder (duty finder?) and just wait to be paired with people to help them? Or did I misunderstand the purpose of duty finder? Do we have to be on the same quest or can we just queue up and play?

Thank you!

How you think FFXIV works since it is a MMO: I can play with my wife and we can clear the story together, playing together and it'll be like a multiplayer FF game!

How FFXIV actually works: Doing story content together in a party is super boring because most of it is cutscenes and talking, and some of the exciting fights are Solo Duties you cannot do together anyway, and it feels like the most anti-social thing ever when playing "together". Like going out for a meal and having to sit at different tables, and they allow you to join the tables for 10 minutes every now and then.

How FFXIV can be fun in multiplayer: Clear optional dungeons together, do Beast Tribe quests, and while exploring the field you can do FATES you run into together which makes most of them more fun and manageable. Then play story quests separately at your own pace as long as you both catch up to each other when needed. The best stuff for multiplayer unlocks after the main stories ARR and HW. Post-game content is amazing.

As for the question about the Duty Finder, it's basically the catch-all matchmaker. Once you are in a party with who you want to be with, just go into it and select and queue up any dungeons/trials/raids you want to do together. It doesn't have to be flagged for the story.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

I try not to get upset at others messing up because I know sooner or later I'll mess up and I don't want people to get angry at me. Do unto others and all that. The other day there was someone in a PotD party who cussed me out and told me I needed to stop playing the game after he died to the boss and I wasn't able to withstand the boss's attacks. Sure, it's frustrating when you lose PotD progress due to wiping at the boss, but I'm trying my best here, you know?

 

[Interrobang]

It is story. First dungeon is called Sastasha and the quest to unlock is 'it's probably pirates' You're likely leveled a tad ahead of MSQ content right now which is fine and to be expected.

This page might help you out a fair bit in terms of finding things you might miss: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Guide:Progression_and_Level_Locked_Content

Thank you! Looking now.

How you think FFXIV works since it is a MMO: I can play with my wife and we can clear the story together, playing together and it'll be like a multiplayer FF game!

How FFXIV actually works: Doing story content together in a party is super boring because most of it is cutscenes and talking, and some of the exciting fights are Solo Duties you cannot do together anyway, and it feels like the most anti-social thing ever when playing "together". Like going out for a meal and having to sit at different tables, and they allow you to join the tables for 10 minutes every now and then.

How FFXIV can be fun in multiplayer: Clear optional dungeons together, do Beast Tribe quests, and while exploring the field you can do FATES you run into together which makes most of them more fun and manageable. Then play story quests separately at your own pace as long as you both catch up to each other when needed. The best stuff for multiplayer unlocks after the main stories ARR and HW. Post-game content is amazing.

As for the question about the Duty Finder, it's basically the catch-all matchmaker. Once you are in a party with who you want to be with, just go into it and select and queue up any dungeons/trials/raids you want to do together. It doesn't have to be flagged for the story.

I was definitely prepared for what playing an MMO together would be/didn't think it would be a multiplayer Final Fantasy game (used to play 11, although I know they're nothing alike). I just thought if all 11 quests we have are chitchatting we would be able to do something else. I have to explore none-quest ways to have fun a bit more!

 

[Anoregon]

5 wipes and 2 groups falling apart trying to beat Ravana so I can continue MSQ's on the way to 60.

Great. This is great fun.

 

[kagamin]

Ravana Hard is more bothersome than Ravana Extreme in all honesty, because you have to deal with every single mechanic.

 

[wamberz1]

My favorite thing about Ravana is the part where the off tank doesn't know what to do after pillar of heaven and proceeds to run around in circles making Rav kamehameha everyone

 

[duckroll]

I try not to get upset at others messing up because I know sooner or later I'll mess up and I don't want people to get angry at me. Do unto others and all that. The other day there was someone in a PotD party who cussed me out and told me I needed to stop playing the game after he died to the boss and I wasn't able to withstand the boss's attacks. Sure, it's frustrating when you lose PotD progress due to wiping at the boss, but I'm trying my best here, you know?

Whenever someone gets mad at me, they're usually technically right. But it makes me feel bad and sucks the fun out of it. What makes it lame tho, is that this always happens to me when we actually win. We win, I may have died a couple of times because I'm not paying attention to AOEs well, but in the end WE WON. But no, let's spend some more time whining about the guy who wasn't giving his 100%. Like, yeah okay, I got it the first time.

On the other hand, my experience so far is that when things go badly, people tend to be nice about it. Maybe it's good luck? When other players fuck up really badly and we get wiped, I don't insult people or get mad either. I'm happy to try again and as long as the entire party learns from each wipe and we improve and can clear the content, it feels good.

Reading comments about the game community definitely shows that YMMV tho.

 

[B.K.]

I"m been having a graphical problem for the last few days that I can't figure out. When I move the camera, objects in the distance blur and have an after image. I can't figure it out and it doesn't show up in screenshots. Has anyone had that problem?

 

[iammeiam]

In general my issues are just chiefly with community attitudes. Shaming someone for doing something they don't want to do just creates a sour mood in the community. If you can communicate politely to someone why you think they should do something they're not doing, by all means do so, but for regular dungeons it's not That Serious. If it's all serious time then you should probably just put together a static group for 4 mans too so y'all can be serious time together.

And this is actually an example of why I find Yoshida's response and in many cases community response to his response so frustrating--this shouldn't be about wanting all four people in EXDR to actively contribute the whole time being Too Serious people who should self-segregate into Too Serious cliques, isolated from the rest of the playerbase. There's nothing inherently wrong with not wanting to DPS, or not being comfortable with Cleric Stance, but there's also not anything inherently wrong from wanting all four people in the dungeon to contribute and finding the person who queues healer and drops this macro as frustrating as the monk who only knows how to Bootshine or the blizzard wizard. None of it is worth raging out over. None of it is worth more than a casual attempt at discussion. And it's incredibly easy for people on both sides to set up groups in a way to secure their preferred approach without having to be exposed to the tryhards/lazy/whatever derogatory term dudes on the other side.

They've created an odd situation where it is proper and approved use of the vote-kick system for kicking a healer who insists on DPSing when you don't want them to, kicking somebody pressuring a healer to DPS who doesn't want to, and kicking a healer who refuses to DPS when the group wants them to. And it's the last one that's key, because Yoshida can give any kind of interview he wants but the official position of his community team is if your group disapproves of your personal play style, they can chuck you out. The actual official recommendation for handling this is just voting each other off of the island, which is so incredibly dumb and is just going to make things worse. Give us checkboxes for queueing preferences, or fix the situation so healers can consistently contribute without DPS, but I wish they'd stop turning the design decision into meta-PVP.

It's one of those things where the micro doesn't ultimately matter to me at all, because I legitimately enjoy sprinting through large pulls and seeing how many non-cleric GCDs I can shave off an EXDR this time, and for the most part any artificially lengthened run from a healer who is afk 70% of the time is just a reminder to stop trying to EXDR on DPS, but that the dev team consistently handles their questionable design decisions by pitting groups in the player base against one another drives me crazy.

 

[Squishy3]

Ravana Hard is more bothersome than Ravana Extreme in all honesty, because you have to deal with every single mechanic.

Going back to Ravana Hard after doing Extreme when it was relevant because it feels like a complete mishmash of mechanics that makes no sense.

 

[Frumix]

Well you're never gonna solve this problem when everything rides on duty finder. The inherent problem with LFD is that its purpose (part of it anyway) is to make good players play with bad players. When WoW people used to say that LFD ruined the game and made people bad, what really was happening was that good players lived in their guild bubble where they never had to really interact with bads. XIV doubled down on LFD with gusto reducing content you need premades for to absolute minimum aiming at 0. Doesn't take a genius to see the outcome. And there's only one solution to this - if you're putting things into a matchmaker, that means it has to be dumbed down so success rates aren't abysmal.

I imagine at least some people on the dev team would like to just take a GIT GUD stance but they can't because of marketing and company policy and overall image of the game they're going for. Reasons for this are different between the East and the West but it is what it is. It's a very contradictory situation and going "well just kick somebody if they don't play like the rest of you want" is the only out they can do in this situation because creating environments where this isn't necessary means laying down rules which means exclusion which is just totally not okay in the current year!

 

[Heysoos]

Is the GAF guild still alive?

 

[DrForester]

Do we know...

Exactly when Servers are expected to go down next week for update?

Where SB questline will start?

 

[Frumix]

Do we know...

Exactly when Servers are expected to go down next week for update?

Where SB questline will start?

Jun. 15, 2017 2:00 a.m PDT
Rising Stones would be a good bet

 

[Killthee]

Do we know...

Exactly when Servers are expected to go down next week for update?

Where SB questline will start?

They're going down at 2:00 am pdt on the 15th and going back up 24 hours later. Patch should be up sometime in the morning the day of the patch.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/363adf22fb04619d3a79fac5ee95d67f4cd6e856

Guessing the quest line will start where ever the last one ended. We should know for sure when they release the patch notes.

 

[Qvoth]

We're only level 18 right now, we've done a few solo instances where we had to dissolve our party to enter them. For context: we just left Ul'Dah for Limsa Lominsa for the first time. I don't remember doing any flat-out dungeons yet. Does that mean we haven't unlocked duty finder yet?

sastasha is the 1st 4 man dungeon you'll encounter, you'll get the quest for it soon since you're in limsa now
keep in mind that it's quite likely the other party members you're getting is probably going to be high leveled characters doing their roulette, but synced down to the dungeon's max level
if you're unlucky and they're a douchy bunch then they'll want to finish the dungeon asap and might rush through a lot of things, better to just mention this is your 1st time in the dungeon beforehand

 

[The Last Wizard]

Is the GAF guild still alive?

Yes.

Do we know...

Exactly when Servers are expected to go down next week for update?

Where SB questline will start?

Yup, rising stone most likely.

Where did heavensward start I forget, camp dragonhead right?

 

[v1perz53]

Man, do they get any better at not adding long cutscenes before group activities later on in the game? Been playing again, but since I haven't played in ~a year I decided to start a new character to re-familiarize myself with the game, just got to Ifrit. Been trying to get back into the story, so I wanted to watch the cutscene but god I feel like such a jerk making my whole party sit there waiting for like 3 minutes while I watch a story scene. And I'm always worried I'll get locked out of a boss if I watch the scene before it. One of the odd choices I always thought were in this game. But I do love the cutscenes overall, just not in group content.

Also random question but is there an easy way to compare gear in this game? I can see if something has more defense or magic defense than what I'm wearing but can't figure out how to compare the changes in actual stats without just looking at the two items, I feel like I'm playing WoW in 2004 again equipping whatever has the most armor hah.

 

[duckroll]

Where did heavensward start I forget, camp dragonhead right?

Yes. Camp Dragonhead. You get permission to enter the gates, and you head there.

 

[hosannainexcelsis]

Man, do they get any better at not adding long cutscenes before group activities later on in the game? Been playing again, but since I haven't played in ~a year I decided to start a new character to re-familiarize myself with the game, just got to Ifrit. Been trying to get back into the story, so I wanted to watch the cutscene but god I feel like such a jerk making my whole party sit there waiting for like 3 minutes while I watch a story scene. And I'm always worried I'll get locked out of a boss if I watch the scene before it. One of the odd choices I always thought were in this game. But I do love the cutscenes overall, just not in group content.

Putting cutscenes in dungeons goes away almost entirely after the base 2.0 content. You'll want to try to do the final 2 dungeons of 2.0 with a premade party that'll let you watch cutscenes though, because otherwise they'll be a mess.

Also random question but is there an easy way to compare gear in this game? I can see if something has more defense or magic defense than what I'm wearing but can't figure out how to compare the changes in actual stats without just looking at the two items, I feel like I'm playing WoW in 2004 again equipping whatever has the most armor hah.

Press Square (or right-click on PC, I'm assuming) on the gear you're looking at and select Item Comparison from the menu.

 

[Squishy3]

Yes.

Yup, rising stone most likely.

Where did heavensward start I forget, camp dragonhead right?

You started in the little foyer place at Camp Dragonhead, yeah. If your goal is to start Stormblood ASAP, you'll want to be in Mor Dhona. You can logout inside of the instanced area where the MSQ will be as well, so your PC shouldn't die when trying to load into Mor Dhona proper.

 

[LowParry]

Last time on Final Fantasy...

 

[Foxxsoxx]

Last time on Final Fantasy...

Jeez what server is that? Ultros?

I'm on Behemoth and mine isn't nearly a populated.

ALSO OH MY GOD I CAN NOT TELL IF I LIKE OR HATE MACHINIST.

I kind of dig their playstyle since it keeps you on your toes and the flamethrower looks sick in SB but their animations besides clean shot aren't too fun to look at, but even then you really don't even look at your character. It's action bar simulator 2017.

 

[duckroll]

I finished off the 3.2 stuff last night. Damn it was even more exciting than 3.1. I've realized something about the difference between 2.x and 3.x. With 2.x, it seemed very clear that they wanted to make 2.0 a complete product with an epic FF ending because if the entire project failed at least it would end on a satisfying note. While there were hooks for more stuff, it was like the end of a TV season where if the show got canned fans would not feel terrible. HW is completely different in design. 3.0 is not only an incomplete story on its own, but it is clear that they planned for it to be cover one aspect of the story, with a climax of sorts, but the cliffhanger after leads directly into what is in fact the true ending in 3.x. So while 2.x was mostly epilogue stuff until 2.4 started building up the prologue to HW, 3.x right now feels completely like an epic finale to the story that started from 2.4. So damn good. This is what happens when you have the confidence that your MMO service isn't going to be shitcanned because no one wants to play it.

 

[wamberz1]

Jeez what server is that? Ultros?

I'm on Behemoth and mine isn't nearly a populated.

ALSO OH MY GOD I CAN NOT TELL IF I LIKE OR HATE MACHINIST.

I kind of dig their playstyle since it keeps you on your toes and the flamethrower looks sick in SB but their animations besides clean shot aren't too fun to look at, but even then you really don't even look at your character. It's action bar simulator 2017.

Have you seen the heated actions in stormblood? They look stylish AF
https://youtu.be/qCEOk3kYXb8?t=14s

 

[darkside31337]

hey guys, thanks for letting me in the FC... just started this game a few hours ago. Its fun although it feels so overwhelming compared to wow. Donkey Kong just dropping in to say hello.

 

[LowParry]

Jeez what server is that? Ultros?

Correct. People be bored.

 

[Luminaire]

Jeez what server is that? Ultros?

I'm on Behemoth and mine isn't nearly a populated.

ALSO OH MY GOD I CAN NOT TELL IF I LIKE OR HATE MACHINIST.

I kind of dig their playstyle since it keeps you on your toes and the flamethrower looks sick in SB but their animations besides clean shot aren't too fun to look at, but even then you really don't even look at your character. It's action bar simulator 2017.

Yeah, Real Link is on Ultros. Looks like the stupid chaos we do on that server.

 

[Kenai]

I finished off the 3.2 stuff last night. Damn it was even more exciting than 3.1. I've realized something about the difference between 2.x and 3.x. With 2.x, it seemed very clear that they wanted to make 2.0 a complete product with an epic FF ending because if the entire project failed at least it would end on a satisfying note. While there were hooks for more stuff, it was like the end of a TV season where if the show got canned fans would not feel terrible. HW is completely different in design. 3.0 is not only an incomplete story on its own, but it is clear that they planned for it to be cover one aspect of the story, with a climax of sorts, but the cliffhanger after leads directly into what is in fact the true ending in 3.x. So while 2.x was mostly epilogue stuff until 2.4 started building up the prologue to HW, 3.x right now feels completely like an epic finale to the story that started from 2.4. So damn good. This is what happens when you have the confidence that your MMO service isn't going to be shitcanned because no one wants to play it.

Yea i didn't play much of 1.0 but I had been told a lot of what they did in 2x (especially in Binding Coil) was to try to tie up the story lines they started (and I guess leave enough open ended stuff for fanfiction or something). One of the things I do really enjoy about this game is that they remember a lot of their older minor characters so you get to see them again every so often. Just enough to be a pleasant surprise (like seeing all the crafting guild leaders again for one of the Christmas events, for example).

 

[VanillaCakeIsBurning]

Have you seen the heated actions in stormblood? They look stylish AF
https://youtu.be/qCEOk3kYXb8?t=14s

This would have been a great addition to Dark Knight since Dark Arts mods a bunch of their weapon skills.

But yeah, Heated barrel is basically a stylish mode.

 

[R0ckman]

Whenever someone gets mad at me, they're usually technically right. But it makes me feel bad and sucks the fun out of it. What makes it lame tho, is that this always happens to me when we actually win. We win, I may have died a couple of times because I'm not paying attention to AOEs well, but in the end WE WON. But no, let's spend some more time whining about the guy who wasn't giving his 100%. Like, yeah okay, I got it the first time.

On the other hand, my experience so far is that when things go badly, people tend to be nice about it. Maybe it's good luck? When other players fuck up really badly and we get wiped, I don't insult people or get mad either. I'm happy to try again and as long as the entire party learns from each wipe and we improve and can clear the content, it feels good.

Reading comments about the game community definitely shows that YMMV tho.

Your servers must be loaded, it takes a lot to piss people off on the server I'm on. I was playing Alexander 5 earlier today and people kept wiping over and over until we beat it, not ONE person said anything, literally nothing typed in chat even after completing it.

The only time it got moderately bad was when out team in a void raid kept dying, then there was a bit of infighting against casual players and people not wanting their time wasted, even then no one was actually aggressively singled out and attacked.

 

[wamberz1]

This would have been a great addition to Dark Knight since Dark Arts mods a bunch of their weapon skills.

But yeah, Heated barrel is basically a stylish mode.

I remember someone saying that earlier too and I totally agree. Even an extra little particle effect or something... how hard could it be!

Spoiler

Or just let us disable that god-awful dark arts sound effect