FFXIV Has a Problem



Watch this next: https://youtu.be/F9ZjA6uRquc

There will be an accompanying video to this coming sometime next week that will more deeply discuss one or two things I mention here! I honestly think it’s one of the subjects that I hope gets addressed the most in 7.0. Let me know what you think in the comments, and if you like this video sharing it is genuinely and truly appreciated. Thank you!

#ffxiv #dawntrail #endwalker

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38 thoughts on “FFXIV Has a Problem”

  1. Just cause they've made things better doesn't mean there aren't still things they could update/change. Honestly agree on the aoe by 15 so every job can aoe in the first dungeon. While I wish though that we could have access to whatever of our kit we've unlocked even when we level synch down, I recognize that this game isn't built for it unfortunately, so would be nice if they could give everyone a bit of that tank treatment of having some core abilities available by then. Still glad that tanks have aoe and stance by the first dungeon so I don't have to just outright stop attacking while they regain aggro because I'm horrendously overgeared compared to them, a great fix, but yeah there's still room for improvement too.

    Jewelry is one of those funny parts of ARR that I wish they'd fix. It seemed like they wanted people to go into crafting to cover that part for some reason. It'd be nice if they could add some dungeon jewelry to help cover it since even making some available through NPC quests like in HW and onwards, those quests tend to be side quests people may not get to immediately and so usually players upgrade the first time or few through dungeon accessories. That said…I have to look at some of that stuff again because I swear sometimes the only thing better with some is the ilvl wherein the stats of some of the starting stuff I think was designed to carry for a while before you actually find an upgrade that actually does something for each class (might've been their way to try and mitigate the awkward handling before).

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  2. point 1) as a main tank who was largely "forced" into tanking due to how dps work in ff14… and as a long time player from 1.0 onward (while taking breaks forced and otherwise) I 100% with EVERY job have an aoe at 15. it makes runs go smoother if everyone is in the same page and level. if one dps can only single target, with one dps only doing an aoe it actually fricks up enmity.

    the way enmity works is largely damage based with lesser portion being ability based.. if a healer does a skill just as tank pulls it will run to them and tank needs to do an aoe or two to pull off. If a dps pulls ahead and goes ham, a tank needs to do 2 or 3 aoe till the group is on them. Tank stance only just slightly increases enmity… the second we stop hitting a mob.. that mob will make a bee line to the dps. this happens to me a lot as a tank if a dps is single targeting a mob that just barely outside my aoe radius cuz mobs do not play nice based on number and/or size.. and the enemy bar has about a 8-12 mob limit (i never counted) and some packs go beyond that limit so i may not see i lost threat…

    so if 15+ everyone has an aoe it will make mob pulls and groups easier on the tank.. "but holy" just remove the stuff… tbh I HATE holy stun… it makes it hard to time arms length, as not all whm bust out with using holy at the start… so i wait a bit only to pop arms length.. only for the whm to THEN start cast holy…

    minor rant but i swear the ff14 community hate tanks…. x.x been abused heavily as a tank most my time in ff14… im either not pulling enough… cussed out for not sprinting… cussed out for sprinting and pulling too much… cussed out for asking the group larg or small pulls… got cussed out for not asking fir large or small pulls. like i can't win…. x.x i try my best to work with my parties…. to be a team player… but after being told as a fresh lvl 50 back in 2.3 i shoulda been a stain on the bed sheets for not large pulling when it was a fairly new pull style and only in level 50 content (as far as I knew) or getting called lazy for not researching the dungeon before hand… (i had no smart phone or pc) it just got to a point where i just gave up and moment ppl pull for me I just shut down as noything I do/say helps.. so devolve into "a you pull you tank"

    sorry for vent but.. holy hell if everyone started with aoe.. stuff would flow better… pull styles will be more consistent through out the leveling experience and hopefully foster a better game environment for tanks healers and dps. as it stand early level… and post 50 are not similar and it fosters bad behavior and habits that do not line up… too many vets force vet concepts on new players because "too slow must go fast" and new players end up bitter and dejected cuz of the harassment of not getting to learn at their own pace…

    2) 100% though MNK is the worst example as their rotation is screwy and has been screwy since day one (and is the reason why i tank) 1-50 should be "learning the game" and "learning your class" with post 50 should be the slow mastery of the class and new skills/content. i'm a firm believer 1-50 should give out your full kit with 60, 70 80 90+ should be upgrading the kit to bigger stronger moves. As a gunbreaker, the bullet rotation with out the continuation break up feels so sluggish… using the attack boost buff feels useless as you only have your bullet spenders and sometimes blasting/danger zone (the free ocd explode button).

    I'm autistic with ADHD i work best with maintaining repeating patterns… not all jobs keep to the same pattern of rotation and those jobs trip my up too much for me to play. having to relearn muscle memory is not fun for me… and depending on day… can cause me to break down if i mess up because i play out a low level rotation vs current simply cuz muscle memory.. monk being the biggest offender of this in ARR-stormblood. Monk was my main class in ff11 and in ff1.0 i hated the changes in 2.0 onward and is one of 2 jobs that made me throw my hands up and just tank.

    if the dev crew can rework all the jobs and stream line them to be equals in skill type acquisition and maintained it through out the leveling, Id honestly play more jobs. with some jobs in ff14, i end up just missing the ff11 equivalent as i simply had more fun with that class in ff11 then in ff14.. or i had more fun with the ff14 1.0 variant then ff14 2.0+ variant. nearly quit the game several time just because of the above tank harassment i got as tanking was really my last resort to play ff14… and i was looking forward to play ff14, more so on console since prior to the 1.0 launch… I put up with a lot inside and out to fight just to play it… ff14 is fun, just wish the leveling process for all jobs across the board was more fair.

    there is my opinion + rant… tldr: i agree with OP abd this is as a long time ff14 player with 20+ restarts.

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  3. My main thing is just that all jobs need to get more of their skills a lot earlier. Even as a newbie I found a very long stretch of the beginning of the game boring, but I started in ARR so I would have hoped it felt better but I finally got one of my friends to try the game out a some months ago and he quit at level 28 on Archer because he felt it was boring and I couldn't even say anything because the combat is extremely bare bones until sometimes into HW for most jobs. He spent almost 30 levels putting on a DoT and just spamming heavy shot without any position requirements outside of bosses really. So many of the jobs are incredibly boring for a long time. I don't know how anyone starts as Arcanist going into SMN and lasts until the game really picks up. For me, the story picked up far before combat did and hard carried my engagement and that shouldn't be a thing, especially since the story also has a slow start. I hope they address the snail pace of the early game.

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  4. I think they need to go back and add new skills for low level jobs and give them traits that upgrade them to the new skills at later levels. Could make some skills go from being simple "buff damage dealt by 3-5% for X amount of time to something that contributes to giving the job meter or changing other moves. Basically you'd try to give the job more buttons and things to do at the lower levels that will make players want to use them but make the actions less important to the job's overall kit and rotation unlike in the higher levels when the job's identity really begins to take shape.

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  5. The main thing I want is Summoner’s two good DoT abilities back. Yes, I just want Shadowbringers Summoner back, but just the DoTs would help so much. Garuda’s DoT doesn’t even stick to an enemy. And it’s a tiny AoE.

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  6. I could comment on any of the many points worth discussing that were addressed throughout the video. Instead, I'll comment on the last thing that the video addressed: there's now 89.9% of viewers that aren't subscribed because I just hit dat button.

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  7. FIX LOW LVL GEAR!! there's no need to enable a DoW or DoM to wear crafting gear. and gear for tank should be specific to tanks, just like all the other gear for the other jobs. like there's no reason why you should have to look at an accesory to figure out if it actually will work with your job. it's a problem.
    also don't make things like physic something that's effective for a SMN early then just make it useless later on. either remove the skill or make it work for smn at all lvls.
    also… like, make the specific play styles for jobs better understood. one thing that probably contributes to new players just not liking the game is how complex these jobs get and actually figuring out how the jobs match their play styles. i've played all the jobs, i can tell you how each job plays like, but i can't tell you specifically what job you should start with because i don't know how you will like to play. the character creator doesn't give you information about the play styles and why i wound up choosing GLD to start off and hating it, only to pick up archanist and loving that job. only to be railroaded by not understanding how lvling works and nor being told clearly enough you need to run dungeons to lvl. why i crapped out on SMN at lvl 30 because i couldn't figure out how to lvl THM.
    (second time i figured this crap out but it took me 7 years to try the game again. )

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  8. I've just never understood why you don't keep all the spells you've learned but they just get scaled down for the dungeon's level. As a new player I'd be inspired to continue leveling a job if it was showed off more.

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  9. I absolutely 100% agree with your examples of NIN, BRD, and RPR. Honesty especially Reaper because I personally believe it is currently the most accessible melee for players to try because it will completely open up the joys of melee without being too intense or taxing. However it only really does that by level 80, and you could even argue that it isn't complete until 90 because of that lack of Communio.

    An example that I would say of them doing a LOT better is Black Mage from Shadowbringers to Endwalker. They made two fairly minor changes to the class that has significantly improved it to play at all lower levels: Umbral Ice and Astral Fire made the opposite element spells consume no MP FROM LEVEL 1, and they packaged Fire III and Blizzard III together. Before this, Aspect Mastery was all the way at Level 72, meaning you had to always use transpose after Flare, and hope you ticked at the right time to get things to work smoothly. Couple this with Blizzard and Fire III being super smooth transition abilities, you're now learning the core basics of Black Mage right after you go rescue some cheese in Brayflox's Longstop. It's made Black Mage feel incredibly nice to play for the majority of the game and should absolutely be something they should be looking at for all other classes, even if they do not unlock at Level 50 itself.

    Right now because of how awkward some levelling transitions are, I don't ever do levelling roulette, and I especially never do 50/60/70/80 dungeons, and I would not be surprised if this is not the core reason as to why queues take as long as they do for new players, because the old ones don't want to play with dilapidated kits. It is probably not a wise choice to have them access everything, but smoother low level gameplay really should happen, and soon.

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  10. Unpopular opinion it seems: Idc how it's balanced, via aura's or scaling potency etc whatever ,but I'm sick of losing my rotation due to downscaling. Yes I get it, you'll do more damage with your full kit even with downscaling, I don't care. It feels bad, stop doing it.

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  11. Gave this video a thumbs-up as soon as I got to "Every job should have a feature-complete core rotation by level 50". I started in Heavensward, that used to be the case! Your core rotation was there at level 50, and you got expansions and extra stuff for the next 10 levels. Ever since Stormblood they started removing lower-level abilities, ostensibly to avoid hotbar/rotation bloat at the level cap, but the fact that when you sync down you go back to the old hotbars (now with substantial chunks removed, unless you're playing particular lucky classes that mostly avoided losing low-level stuff), it makes playing through old content pretty miserable. One of my favourite things about FF14 as a game is that old content stays "fresh" and you get to help people who are clearing content you finished years ago for the very first time, often multiple times a day! Anything that discourages veteran players from playing through older content (like, say, not having functioning hotbars when you're helping a sprout clear Keeper of the Lake or Labyrinth of the Ancients) should be fixed. It's also entirely possible to do – Red Mage and Samurai both started at level 50 when they debuted in Stormblood, and they're still essentially feature-complete at that level. Red Mage mostly gets extra things to tack onto the end of their "I filled my mana bars" combo (and a button to fill those bars even faster), as well as a couple of (admittedly useful) utility spells like Vercure and Verraise. Samurai has their complete core mechanic at 50 as well – higher levels give them a bar that lets them do oGCD attacks, and various options to fill that bar faster. Black Mage is infamously described as playing a completely different game every 10 levels, but it's still fully functional at the level cap from every single expansion. Meanwhile, Machinist and Bard barely exist at level 50! Not to mention the Ninja example in the video. Every job should be fully functional at 50, 60, 70, and 80 (and eventually 90), not just at level cap. I've had every job at 90 since not long after Endwalker came out, and I don't exclusively run level 90 content. Hell, I don't even mostly run level 90 content. I should still be having fun at level 50, at level 60, and yes, even if I'm level 15 and ended up in Sastasha from running Levelling Roulette.

    The one excuse I can think of for AOEs not appearing for most jobs until level 40+ is that earlier dungeons had monster distribution that was designed for DPS classes to be doing single-target damage and they'd be even easier to clear if everyone had access to AOEs, but A) is that even really a problem, and B) everyone does have access to AOEs if you end up with, say, an Archer and a Thaumaturge as your DPS.

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  12. I still don't know how Armoire works precisely. I remember I put two event helmets there, meanwhile my glamour dresses is almost full. Would love if they simplify them, merging these available slots.

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  13. The majority of MMORPG players coming from other games will have QUIT before reaching Max-level.

    1. They want to actually PLAY the game, and not watching a 100 hour long Movie.

    2. They are used to: too Fast Leveling, Fast Combat and Fast Actions.

    Why stay until Endgame IF 95% of the leveling is Slow and Boring? 🤔

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  14. I've been playing an alt and the skill progression is mind numbingly slow. Especially when you need to reach Ishgard to progress Job quests and you're just now on 2.1. Most low-level jobs are just not fun at best. Bard feels downright bad until you get all of your songs IMO. I won't even get started on how BLM has been spamming Fire IV for 8 consecutive IRL years. lol.

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  15. I think we need a forced tutorial when starting the game that explains how the game mechanics work. The one we have doesn't explain enough about the game, and I didn't even know it existed until I was halfway through Stormblood.

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  16. Ngl tho the constant negativity is getting extremely exhausting, I get that negativity = views but jesus christ the community is hyperfixating on negativity atm..
    Not saying the criticism in the video isn't valid, but I think it's a bit sad that like 99% of videos people put out are negative and that no one ever even talks about positive things anymore.
    It's not even that the issues are big and worth making a fuzz about either compared to other MMO's, I just think people always say the community has a '' toxic positivity '' issue and I dunno what alternate reality people are living in because I think we have a severe case of toxic negativity everywhere you go.

    Clickbaity titles from Youtubers don't really help either, because potential new players see the titles and think '' wow FFXIV must really suck because all I see is '' WHY FFXIV EW IS WORST EXPANSION THIS IS WHAT I HAAAATE ABOUT FFXIV E=WI GIUOWG IWE ''….
    It's pretty bizarre seeing Zepla for instance bring up Deep Dungeons as a negative in her '' ENDWALKER WORST EXPANSION EVER MADE '' video and then when she actually played it recently ( no she hadn't even played it yet……………….. ) she actually has been enjoying and praising it…

    It just feels like people are being bitter to a completely unwarranted level where it comes across as whiny and makes the game sound awful.

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  17. I think making this change depends on the nuances of the class and their skill ceiling. I started with WAR, and could almost play it in my sleep now. After I hit Lv90 on that, I moved to… NIN. I tell you, waiting til Lv60 to get the oops I dropped my huton button was the least of my concerns. The muscle memory I needed to develop so that my brain wasn't so occupied I'd wiff every mechanic in dungeons/trials did not come easy, and took considerable time. By the time I hit Lv60, I was decent enough that most of my mudra stuff was muscle memory. Having to burn up mudras to spin up Huton and refresh it sucks but not having a one tap GCD to spin up your Huton gauge forced additional opportunities for you to train aforementioned muscle memory. Now its scarcely an issue for me.

    For NIN, the only thing I wish I had sooner with dream within a dream. Assassinate forces you to stay still for so long and its easy to get yourself obliterated using it. Otherwise, I felt like at least that one particular class journey was paced quite well.

    I'd argue, if they get the core rotations fleshed out by Lv50 for all classes as you suggest, it benefits vets more than it does the new players, based on my experience so far. A new player that can't be bothered with the skilling up is going to just buy a game skip anyway. For those types of individuals, skipping hundreds of hours of MSQ content and getting to end game quickly is what they want. For me, I was too busy enjoying the MSQ and the various sidequests, job quests/storylines, etc. to be concerned about the balance of my class. Maybe I'll feel different when I pick up another class, but this is my anecdotal opinion as someone whose been playing for about 6 months.

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  18. As WHM, you get your core Lily system at 52. Except, no you don't. You get your one, single target heal and that's IT ALL THE WAY UNTIL 74! And get this, you unlock blood lily at 74. Guess when you unlock your AOE healing lily? 76. What a joke

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  19. Assuming much of the level 50 unfinished rotation is a holdover from ARR where they were not fixed until Heavensward level 60 rotation and they simply never went back to fix it. Originally there were far more skills whilst levelling when those expansions were current, but they got removed and just buffed basic ability potency. I just consider the low level jank part of the experience now. It probably even sells boosts for the game so SE not incentivised to change it. Honestly surprised they went back and changed old legacy content at all because it was around for so long, even newer players who joined in Shadowbringers still got to experience most of it before changes.

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  20. In Guild Wars 2, instead of losing your abilities when you're synced, you get to keep them, and your stats are synced, I think it'd be very cool and make XIV a bunch more fun if it was like that, but went by expansion so if you went into a ARR dungeon you'd have all of your abilities up to 50.

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  21. As amazing as all these solutions are, I honestly don't see them ever implementing the. Mainly because it's issues with the free to play content of the game, which the suits up too are in no way incentivized to fix. As long as they don't think it will get them more money, they won't bother with it. Even if the devs themselves want to fix it, it comes down to the suits against the game.

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  22. There are some things from older content that I am glad that they changed, because they were just clunky and made the fight annoying, but there were other ones I was seriously disappointed in the changes they made, like the fact that the fight with Midgardsormor no longer feels epic like it once did, rather it feels kind of underwhelming. I could see getting rid of needing to activate the shield that drops from the add, but it would have been cool to have had that effect go off automatically or something after the add was killed. Also, why get rid of the cool flow out, flow in mechanics for fighting the duel dragons in exchange for just AOEing them down at the same time?
    I'm all for getting rid of redundant or clunky elements, but not at the expense of taking away what made a fight stand out in favor of something stale as it's replacement.

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  23. Honestly, most mmos that let you que into lower dungeons/roulettes (or sync with world content), let you use all your abilities that you have unlocked and just scale down your damage. Sure the higher level player even scaled down will be stronger than lower levels missing abilities/rotations, but its far more enjoyable than just having nothing to do but bash head on keyboard. And honestly, anything 60 and lower is pretty hard to screw up outside of some of the 50 dungeons having insta-fail mechanics. Or did, not sure if those even exist anymore. Even being dropped to 80 depending on the class can feel horrible as you lose major parts of your rotation. The only other issue I really have with this game is Gil, quests, dailies/roulettes, bounties, etc should give more, I don't think that the only people who can make money are those who play the AH. AH should always be the quickest and best route for big money, but I still feel like you earn too little for what you do in a day if you aren't selling on the AH. Pretty sure if I was a serious raider and had to buy food/pots and pay repair bills I would be broke if I couldn't sell anything on the AH and relied only on what Gil I got from dailies/roulettes. Not saying it should be huge amounts, but you should be able to save up money to be able to buy some cosmetics/housing/etc if you were delignate, never would have the big item, but could at least have some goals. I suppose you can always vendor sell things, but in most cases that just feels bad even if its roughly the same as you would be able to get on the AH for it. This again goes back to all the issues with player housing, but in years past I know a lot of casual players who felt incredibly discouraged when they looked at the cost of the houses and that was before explaining to them how difficult it was to get one when they did go for sell. Easier now with the lottery system, at least you can enter it instead of having to take a week off of work to spam click a sign, but that has its own issues. But at least we got meaningless side content in the form of an instanced island that we can barely modify instead of fixing the housing market . . .

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  24. I wish a "new game +" feature allow you if you have finish the MSQ related the possibility to directly choose with job you want to play when you create a new character. For exemple starting directly with a DRK lvl 1.

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  25. Imo, even if the Monk gets an AoE relatively early, I think there is some rework to do here. The thing is, if you have a look at your AoE combo:
    1. Arm of the Destroyer unlocks at level 26
    2. Four-point Fury unlocks at level 45
    3. Rockbreaker unlocks at level 30

    This means that, due to stances between level 30 and 45, either you have to squeeze a single target skill between 1 and 3 or ignore 3 and spam 1. Neither feels good to play imho.

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