FF14 First Impressions of Heavensward after 15 years of WoW.
I’ve played WoW for over 15 years but given the state of WoW right now, the lack of content in the game and care from the devs, some of my friends have convinced me to try FF14. So I wanted to document my FFXIV first impressions as a WoW refugee after 15 years and document my journey through FF14 and give my feedback along the way.
I’ve already done an 18 part series through ARR and now I wanted to cover my first impressions and document my journey through FF14 Heavensward as a long time WoW player and refugee. Throughout I will be comparing FF14 to WoW and referencing the differences between the two. Obviously, I do have some bias, but I will try and keep an open mind all the way.
FFXIV Heavensward is the single best story I’ve ever experienced in an MMORPG and is on par with the single player Final Fantasy games. I’m loving the story, the daily beast tribe quests and the trials so much. Even if the story can get really sad at some points.
I stream all of this live on twitch and would love to see you there:
https://www.twitch.tv/medievalmarty
And we have a super active FF14 discord with over 1000 people if you want to join the community:
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Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
1:40 The Aery and Dragons
6:20 Beast Tribes Complete
9:55 Lvl 50 Paladin
12:50 Garuda Extreme
16:30 The Vault and Cry
source
Thanks so much everyone for all the support lately! This was a super emotional one, and the Vault ending absolutely caught me off guard!!
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Welcome to the first of many heartbreaks!!! It really sunk in when I went back to the Fortemps home & then headed to Camp Dragonhead & then visited Francel.
I won't say why but it was devastating.
The Knights of the Heavensward are doing the same thing Ysayle does when she turns into Shiva, they're becoming "Primals" of the Heavensward
The difference between ARR and Heavensward is that you get to know the Characters, the build up in working with Haucherfent and Aymeric so early in ARR, then through the post patch content, that in some cases you know the characters even better than the rest of the Scions. Since the experience with the Scions also depends upon what your starting zone is, you get a different experience with each Scion at first as well. You get some what connected with each scion, but the bond doesn't form as much as what take place in them setting up the characters for Heavensward I feel.
I will say this, there are lots of emotional moments at times in the game. The 60-70 Alchemist quest is one.
You have many more emotional moments ahead! ;3
I promise you that the Dark Knight story quests will hit for you. They are incredible and I highly recommend it! No pressure, but it is among my favorite class quest lines and I would love for you to experience it!
There are new beast tribes in every expansion. 🙂 And once you get all 5 ARR beast tribes to their original max rep, you can do a story that involves all of them and raises your rep with them even higher. ^_^ You have to be Blood Sworn with the Ixal to get my favorite of the beast tribe mounts I've gotten so far. 😉
Glad you linked the dragoon class mechanics to the class lore. And as an added bonus, the reason dragoons are so pointy is so dragons can't grab/pin you, or, in worst case scenario, so they choke if they eat you. Fun stuff. 🙂
Honestly, since the tanks share gear. It really benefits you and your inventory to just level them around the same time. Lol. So do both.
When you were trying to figure out which Primals were represented with the Nightmare mount, here's what you missed:
When you run (or fly) the mount will kick up rocks. This mount is dropped by Ifrit, Garuda, or Titan, so that's how all 3 are represented.
Ifrit's horn
Garuda's feet
Titan's trail
Love these videos. Now in shadowbringers it's so good to re-watch the epicness of heavens ward. This was one of the sadest moments for me until now 🙁 keep up the good work and I hope you enjoy the rest of that amazing expansion!!!
If you like Paladin, you may love Gunbreaker. I was a Paladin main from launch until Shadowbringers, and Gunbreaker was the first class to make me switch mains cause I enjoyed it so much.
That moment is almost a rite of passage at this point. And honestly, after that moment there was a disconnect from me and my avatar, in that he felt less like a vehicle for me to simply enjoy the game…but his own character with Arcs and story beats. And this, this was only the beginning of his journey.
i think when people talk about ARR tribes being a grind they usually talk about it from a perspective of somebody that didn't do those things as they were leveling along (or even as somebody who did it before ARR flight, which made a lot of things a lot more annoying to navigate), as many people focus in on the MSQ and maybe both alliance raids and normal raids
as somebody just making my way through all of them (going in a backwards order, ARR will be my last 5 tribes even tho i progressed through them a little bit before) it does feel a bit grindy if you're trying to focus on leveling them, rather than treat it as a side daily thing
it's not AS bad as people make it out to be, i think many MMO's have it worse in that regard with their daily side content, but i can kinda understand what they mean really
Nah, you missed another level 50. You also automatically, by proxy, have SMN at 50 because of SCH.
Just saying…. LOL
If no one has told you yet, maxing out all ARR beast tribes gives you a pretty cool piece of glam that’s a perfect fit for the male Miqote face. It’s pretty cool.
Do you think your gonna make it to Endwalker when it comes out? Is that a goal, or no?
Drk story hits the mark, also glad youre enjoying Heavensward! 😀
you should do Dark knight all the same, even if you don't play it; this job is integral part of the FFXIV experience
I get Vault about 90% of the time in the Leveling Roulette and I'm sad every time, thinking about what happens after. ;_;
Your class choice, is wise. Going into Shadowbringers, you won't have "class quests" but will instead have Role Quests, the roles being Tank, Healer, physical dps, and magical dps. doing all 4 questlines unlocks an additional quest afterwards, and helps flesh out a few points. Consider yourself well prepared for this, because you have your tank, your physical dps, and because you chose scholar as your healer, you get both healer and magical dps for the price of one, since summoner shares levels with scholar. So you may consider going through the summoner questlines down the line before you get into Shadowbringers 😀 will save you some time!
I love Paladin and consider it my main tank. Unfortunately the stories are ALL bad. Plays like a dream at least lol
I binged your while series in two days. I've had fun watching you totally not get sidetracked by fishing.
I stopped my MSQ too after the Vault. Couldn't touch the game in fact for a few days, I couldn't face coming to the manor after what happened.
Needless to say, that was the first time I felt that way in FFXIV. But it wasn't the last break I had to take to compose myself in this game😭
The thing is that Haurchefant has been flirting with the WOL since the beginning and also been such a supportive friend that losing him really felt like losing someone important to you/your character. And even if most ppl played through Shadowbringers by now, they'd tell you they still miss Haurchefant. I sure do. For more tears go visit Francel and Camp Dragonhead and talk to the npcs after his death. It's heartbreaking
I might be wrong on this, but I BELIEVE Nightmare is a 1.5 percent chance drop mount that can be recieved on any of the ARR primals during extreme. There should also be a "Random Mount" button in your menus somewhere that you can attach to the hotbar if you ever just want to turn off your brain about mounts.
Edit: Not every ARR Primal, but rather from Garuda, Titan, or Ifrit.
I have plenty of mounts so I just use mount roulette.
I was gonna say that if you wanted to level a 4th class, picking a magic dps would be good (for spoilery reasons), but if you have scholar you have summonner, so it covers that.
Yes those bosses in the Vault were members of the Heavens’ Ward. There’s 12 in total. They transformed into primals much like what Iceheart did.
Yeah, PLD story was kinda meh. Wasn't very good and I was mad at the HW storyline for them. In SB, the story gets better in my opinion.
Awww this expansion was so goood! I agree with the 11:50 bit about the story kind of flatlining a little but it picks up so well ♥
I hope you upload your live reaction to the Vault ending.
It feels so weird finding someone call Garuda harder than Shiva or Leviathan x) but seeing it from dps point of view i can definitely see where is coming from!
The Paladin story is rather weak, I fully agree on that one. And I'm sad to say that it doesn't get any better with it's HW quests. However. Please. Please. Please do level dark knight. It has one of the best job questlines in the game, I don't want to say anything to spoil it, but if you even remotely consider going as Dark Knight for a bit, do it.
So, if you want the scene after the Vault to be even worse and more feelsy. If you talk to him right before going in while he's talking to his father, you hear him saying to him, "Do not worry, Father! My arm shall not falter, my shield shall not break!" His arm surely didn't falter….. but his shield on the other hand….
Also, there's another translation of the game (I think it's French) where when he's dying, he looks over at you and says "To have you so close, only to be unable to feel you."
Hauchefaut×WoL forever! Hauchefaut is best boy! T^T
Sending you a thousand virtual hankies ❤️
A smile better suits a hero.
And now we wait for Feelsbringer.
"A smile better suits a hero" i knew that you've hit the saddest moment of HVN
This moment is even more sadder in French and Japanese because the way Haurchefrant addresses to you is way more closer like romantic in French and very sexy in Japanese
You can buy his portrait for few gils to honor him in your house, a house can't be a good one without his portrait
You should post your full reaction to the vault
No word of a lie, the first few days of Heavensward, there were a few players waiting outside the Vault to give hugs and mini therapy sessions on Balmung. We were NOT okay. T_T
Final Fantasy is everything: Action Drama Angst Comedy. You experience a full range of emotion all at some point in the MSQ and thats a credit to the story telling
My favourite mount is from one of the Stormblood beast tribes. Won't go into further details for spoilers, but there is a Beast tribe that give you two mounts and one of them is my favourite.
I agree on the Paladin Quests not being all that great. Some class quests have ups and downs but Paladin just felt kind of meh all the way through to the end. I'm not sure which is better, to be always meh or to have high moments mixed with low moments.