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A review of Final Fantasy 14 after 6000 hours with it, focusing on where it went right, where it still might be going wrong, and what sets it apart from other games in the genre.
Introduction 0:00
Part 1 – The early game 12:50
Part 2 – The story 35:45
Part 3 – The ARR problem 54:43
Part 4 – The end game 1:17:35
Part 4b – Raiding 1:37:39
Part 5 – A home you can return to 1:48:38
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Ah, it's nice to see someone that remembers that at one point, ARR's content had some challenge and beef to it. I stand up for it hard- in the MMO landscape and in the JRPG landscape, it stands head and shoulders above the crowd imo- but it is far, far too easy. Hell, I had a roulette group wipe on Titan Hardmode three times and I genuinely cheered for him.
The good old days are gone, though. It's a sad thing.
I gave endwalker a pass on the gameplay well lack of gameplay because of the amazing story and how they have tied it all together it felt like a movie rather then a game
The story you only experience it for the first time once so I didn't mind knowing I've got all my other lvling and things to do after msq
I started playing the end of stormblood a refugee from bfa. And I find I play more solo unfortunately I lag alot on aether data centre and cam wait for oceanic data center hopefully I can get more mates to play then
I actually hated doing ARR. I quit the game 3 different times because I just kept trying, but ARR was a Lot and I just couldn't do it.
Once SHB came out I finally sat down and grinded through it. This time I made a character I got attached to and wrote a background story for her, too. That was the best choice I made, because through the eyes of a character who felt like one, the story really hit me in ways I never imagined. It swept my character up and changed her in ways I never expected, but warmed my heart. It become a story about healing not only for the world, but for my character and those around her. Because I got so invested in the characters and lore, I really liked how story heavy it became later on. I understand that's not for everyone, but it certainly fed people like me really well lmao
And I enjoyed what u said about difficulty from 4.5 when I started to endwalker I think the hardest thing I've done is the alliance raids pvp mode lol
I the difficulty from msq to extreme is a big jump I haven't done savage as I lag alot and don't want to piss other ppl off
I wish msq was harder because when u fail a duty u can lower the difficulty
Thee last fight on endwalker or that mid game solo duty in garlemeld I cant believe ppl failed them and they made it easyier
I play an astro on console with not card macros lol and the only difficult thing was logging in
I still love the game but for ppl that want a challenge it's there after the msq of each xpac
I wish they did a harder dungeon mode like mythic plus but not mythic plus lol have modified and what ever but make rewards just lvl 1 glam u do it for game or fun factor
The expert dungeons are only hard when u don't upgrade ur from the lvl 80 gear and ur lvl 90 is a challenge to heal lol (honestly the tanks doing this I thank u as a healer and keeping me awake lol)
Well said 💯
Currently watching this while I wait for a 1,337 player log in queue.
I legit just was hit with a shot of feels whe n you said that ffxiv was a home that I can return to. I may have had FCs that crumble because of drama, people I don't talk to anymore because we've moved on with lfe- but uldah and the starting areas are always populated to a certain extent. And the locations feel like home.
I kind of like being the mainest main character to ever main character in a video game, especially after playing World of Warcraft for several years and the game not really even acknowledging that I was there in the post battle cutscenes for the really big fights. (Due to them being pre-rendered, of course, but still). I like that I get respect for doing all the awesome stuff I've done, and that these days when I get sent on a simple kill quest it's because it would be good for morale for people to see me doing it, rather than "it needs doing and I'm the first person who was dumb enough to volunteer". WOW's approach to that stuff – and the inconsistency of that approach – got kind of old after the third time Thrall "officially" killed something that I'm pretty sure we worked a lot harder on than him…
1 :03:30 you are somewhat incorrect. The music in FFXIV Boss encounters doesnt simply change after a certain amount of time. It changes according to phases to further make the phase change more impactful and often gives you like a boost of adrenaline. It still happens even with slightly unbalanced mechanics. It is true tho that they HAVE TO redesign the Praetorium.
With Shadowbringers they introduced TRUST and with END they even got TRUST to not just be an epicly good experience doing dungeons with NPCs that are perfectly grown characters by now but also actual trials. With lore bound to NPC dungeon behaviour (Like Y'shtola being able to predict all mechanics perfectly and never doing something wrong (for specific fights) due to her special eyes.
To apply this to Praetorium would make a huge amount of sense HOWEVER you do not have enough NPCs that are close enough to you and fleshed out enough to run through the dungeon with you and just running around with random soldiers would feel terrible. Additionally it will take a tremendous amount of time and resources to design this. This could cost half a raid of development time.
Currently praetorium should be encountered by all new players as 4 parts instead of only 2 so you have enough time to enjoy it in parts. It's the biggest OOF from the original 14 design. And it will be hard to solve if they do it at all.. its just really difficult.
1:11:40 this is also a matter of respect of the developers towards the original developers of these quests. To remove them would be disrespectful towards the people who worked on these quests as well as to the people who did them and the players who provided feedback on them. A very japanese thing to be so respectful but in my honest opinion a good one. They reduced the collecting thing a lot which was basically my only issue with the quests. All in all the quests are good and tell a story.
This is easily on of my favorite videos you've done. The passion in this video really shows (not that it doesn't in your other videos, but it does especially in this one).
Well actually, the most played MMO in the world is Dungeon Fighter Online. I know Westerners can't seem to think of anything beyond themselves but just saying.
Lineage Mobile is doing pretty well too but I haven't seen it's player numbers. I have seen its revenue numbers though, like 10 times that of WoW and FFXIV I think it was?
Repair your gear!
great video, but you mentioned there is no real challenging 24 man raids, I think you forgot about baldesion arsenal savage and delibrum regine savage, also these zadnor, bozja and eureka raids are more alike to wow raids.
When you look at old Ultima footage and compare it to your current version, you can notice that all players got as much HP as old version tank had. And it would be simillar with defense/magic defense stats aswell, plus generally way higher attributes than it used to be. Average itemlevel back then for those fights was 80, while today its capped at 120, thats 50% more.
Another factor is offcourse experience. Today its trivial task for seasoned player to dodge AoEs, use marks as guidelines while dealing full damage at same time. Old content may be still relevant, but it become trivial and new player can feel carried instead of actually engaging in it.
I'd classify the endgame as:
1. Economic – Crafting, Gathering, or farming rare items for sale on the marketboard
2. Fashion Fantasy XIV – Collecting glamour items or decorations for housing.
3. Raiding – doing end-game content while it's relevant and challenging.
4. Social – Building RP venues, running events, and so on.
I luckily managed to log in day 1 as number 7 on my queue
Hold up i have always thought that "you being a main character" is not actually a thing. I thought the player is more like "the chosen companion" of the actual main character.
Talking about ff14 tunes without mentioning Oblivion?
I can say with pride that to date I have played this game for 3000 days. 🙂
1:02:40 You just made me tear up a bit, not because of the song, but because you opened a 2 year old memory when, I, a clueless sprout back then, actually queued for minstrel ultima on the duty finder, actually got a group and was completely blown away by the rest of the song that didn't played on the preatorium, and yes, we cleared.
Wow that many hours and still WILLINGLY stayed a lalafell?
As a player who started in endwalker and just finished ARR post-patch content, this video nailed it.
14 is just a bad game
Did I have time to watch 2 hours about a game I have already spent thousands of hours in? No.
Did I do it anyway? I guess
Did I enjoy it? Fuck yeah.
You know a video is good when it makes you fall in love even more for your most beloved hobby.
I have around 9k hours played in this game. I did most endgame content excluding Ultimate raid ad nauseum and I've quit last year around when the 3rd Nier raid was released.
The thing that finally pushed me away from the game was the god awful community. You have people in roulettes and party finder being aggressively bad, as in, very negatively responding to any kind of mention of their performance. You'd expect people to be able to press buttons in the right order before joining hardcore endgame content but half the time you have hysterical f*ckwits who threaten anyone with a report if they dont put up with their "freestyle" rotation or pacifist healing.
Worst is, Square Enix completely endorses this since the end of Stormblood with an update to their terms of service that states that anything anyone can find offensive will be a bannable offense. In Endwalker it even got more ridiculous with the addition of not being pro-actively supportive can also be reported. This has cast a giant chill over interactions during duties, especially in 24 man raids where you'd find people chatting, jabbing at each other or posting ASCII art. Now, interacting with strangers is putting your account (and all those hours) at risk with the fear of stepping on a schizophrenic landmine.
The boss music you played at the end of your video pulled at my heartstrings and I could almost feel myself reaching for my wallet but I cannot let myself in good conscience do it. I'd rather avoid spending days trying to form parties in Party Finder to clear easy savage content surrounded with timebombs. I miss this game, if I could wipe my memories to play it for the first time again I would.
They can make older bosses hard again, but in Prae and Castrum, make cutscenes skippable like they used to be.
not through the entire video yet but the ppoint about ARR fights and on being nerfed or just power creep in general. or how ultima used to take upwards of 5 minutes to where now its almost just 50 seconds. is a big complaint i have. things are way too easy now. and its reflected later on as well. theres often times where i will do an extreme and think "why wassnt this the story version of the fight
edit: finished and just to leave off on a simple note, what you said about raid/worldbuilding is 100% correct.as someone who has experienced 1.0-ARR-EW there is a clear difference between old 1.0 dungeons and open world to now. you dont really adventure as much. and that bugs me
First off, great vid. I may not agree with you on everything said (and that's perfectly fine), but it was well thought out, put together, and spoken.
I saw that you referenced how easy/fast fights are for older content. There is the minimum item level option within the Duty Finder. You sort of mentioned it when you discussed ultimate raids. So if you ever want try a dungeon/raid as close to the original as you can get, you can try that. However, it may take time to get a group together for it.
I can see why people are really turned off at ARR, but I never minded it. I came from FF11 so I was reading everything I could. Yes, it's slow, and as you said it's building a foundation. Is it long even after edits and etc, yes. But if you think about it, you'll only ever have to do it once (and that's if you don't make another account). There's also a reason why the cutscenes in the last 2 ARR MSQ dungeons aren't skippable. (They used to be, and that's why it is the way it is now).
I completely agree with how linear 4-man dungeons are, but I think they devs are just taking that 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach. I think in FF14 1.X they had a few dungeons that ere non-linear and some that were just pure-open world. I personally don't mind either, but once you go through them, it's basically like a linear dungeon in the long run because you'll know everything and for most people who will want to get through the dungeon ASAP, they'll just take the fastest route out. I see this as the same issue as 'talent trees' in MMOs. It's cool to make different builds, but in the end most people will go for the most efficient or the one that lets them play their job/role the best so it basically becomes linear in the long run.
I like your definition of endgame – whatever is after MSQ. ^_^
Knowing how 'endgame' is, I would hope no one would try to rush/skip MSQ cutscenes since as you said, the endgame content is still relevant. There's not that 'fear of missing out' if you don't get to endgame in time. There is the new game plus option if you just decide to skip everything and wish to return to it later so that you can go at your own pace.
You hit the nail on the head with your conclusion. FF11 was my first ever MMORPG and I will always cherish it, yet I cannot go back to it because it iwill ruin those memories I've made. You'll never forget your first… There are some mmos I wish I could go back to, but I'll get burned out just catching up and then stop playing again. FF14 is perfect in the way tha tI can easily catch up and continue playing and not get burned out. (And I love how easy it is to play on controller; I don't feel like I'm at a disadvantage over kb/m).
Once again, awesome video. Keep up the good work.
Man, I really really enjoy this game! Digging this video; thank you. 😁
"Yoshi-P, game director and accidental cult leader." LOL
took me 2 days and 3 sessions to finish the video but it was incredibly well made and informative! Awesome work
Don't agree with a bit here/delivery of some things, wish there was more of a focus on social/second life aspects though I get why there wasn't from your perspective I found it hella jarring (I don't play for that but I know countless people who do and looking at social media that is a massive massive reason people start the game and stick around)and wish it had a spoiler warning for the influx of newbies but I agree with all of the criticism outside of post arr pacing and the presentation is very very good
incredible incredible vid and Goated game
It's TOME-stones, not TOMB-stones.
To be fair, FF14 is now at its peak and it barely surpassed Wow which is now at its lowest. Credit where credit's due no MMO has ever come close to Wow during its heyday.
11:07 i should hope that runescape wasnt inspired by world of warcraft, considering the fact that runescape came before world of warcraft
LOL, the Chi 15 more minutes reference is fucking A+.
Is the dude at 18:35 the same actor that does Fable 1's guild master?
to the leveling bit has to be said that the criticism of only story leveling is only true for the first jobb. alt jobs have/should still be leveled by a variety of ways as you said before, and to 30 the hunting log is a good part of it
1:46:28 🙂
I'm in the 4th camp, I just wanted to try playing an MMO for the first time, and FF14 just so happen to have the free trial, if not I probably wouldn't play it
I wouldn't attribute the popularity of FF14 exclusively because the game did something others mmorpgs couldn't, but I would rather say it was a couple of circumstances, mainly by the lack of good tittles ( lack of competition ) for these last 3 years, WoW's steady fall down has been happening for a while, and covid which made ppl stay at home with money in the pockets and a lot of time to spare, it was the perfect catalyzer for FF14's growth, same has happened to other game genres, also it's fair to say and in defense of older mmorpgs, there's a lot more ppl playing online games today than ever before.
I HEAVILY disagree with the point about true north though. while yes, you can use it to be lazy about your positionals. i do believe most dragoon players or hell, even some monk players will agree that the correct usage of it is to use it when you know that the boss is going to be facing in a direction that wont allow you to get your positionals. would be a huge waste to just use it all willy-nilly when its not needed. like, imagine not getting raiden thrust because you used up your true north stacks when its not needed, would feel really bad
its even more important to "save it" when you got pre-stormblood content, as there are multiple bosses and or enemies that cant be moved and are facing you and not being omni-directional.
I have one issue with this review…
It's TOME STONE! TOHM! NOT TOOM OR TOMB STONE! YOU'RE NOT PILEDRIVING PEOPLE INTO THE MAT LIKE THE UNDERTAKER!
On the real though, this is a very good and in depth review, revealing the flaws, it's age in older content, answering questions that should have been asked many years ago or ones that have come up now because of the time. Overall, it's very, very good. I didn't even feel the two hours blow by.
19:46 Omega Bosses and the Gear are deliberate because of the various Sundered worlds. Aspects of past games are woven throughout XIV. Saying that it is just "fanservice" wholly discounts their influences on The Source!