34 thoughts on “Final Fantasy 14 – My Characters & Current Progress”
Agreed that its popular cause it sets a super low bar and also agree that ff14 is kinda fresh air from gw2, its so brain dead relaxing tbh. ''begining of game is all bad and depreciated content'' nah the whole game is this way, only the story changes.
Comparing ffxiv to season 1 gw2 is funny considering you can still play FFXIV original content and say its not good now but you can only look through your memory of GW2 living world and stuff you experienced over like 8 years ago. But please keep playing, even if you dont stream the whole thing keep these updates coming. It would be fun to watch how your opinion changes over time. Just try and document moments that you think may be big to the story for your reaction. Also id just focus on the main story and raids for now. Doing everything as you dont already seem to like the game too much wont be fun for you. I would not skip the story otherwise you wont like this game. Also you will care about your stats at higher levels! Materia is for min/maxing and you can do stuff like being a fast casing Black Mage or a slower harder hitting one. It isnt as indepth as Guild Wars is and I will say that part is a little bit dissapointing but I do think it allows them to craft the PVE far better than Guild Wars and all the classes get pretty fun to play at max level.
Ah yeah, I am currently investing my time in Sword of Legends so it'll be cool to see how this goes. I might try this out. Been hearing a lot that there's a lot of busy work to get to the good stuff.
I have tried the trial for this game 2 times, but always fell off it, the sub fee also didn't help to continue to play either.
I don't blame you at all for being skeptical for the base game's content. 2.0 was made on absolutely minimal budget because of the failure of 1.0, it also had a truckload of setup to make and it did not turn out as well as it could have, by a long shot. That it came out at all was a hell of a gamble for Square Enix. I do wish there was some other way around it, but it's hard to excuse skipping it all until where it "gets fun" because people will get lost AF with all the characters and concepts. The skips are not targeted at new players but stuff like alts for example, since most stuff is story-locked, it makes it so you can get on an alt in a new data center and get raid-ready fairly quickly to play with your friends or whatever, something which will go away soon with the data center travel system.
Also, macros should be kept out of combat skills whenever possible because of the queuing system, which results in a DPS loss pretty frequently.
A few other things are also incorrect, but you'll learn with time.
Edit:Ah, also, build craft was more important than it is now at the beginning of 2.0 actually! These days it's mostly two choices for example: for a mage you can choose between having a more agile playstyle with more spell speed and less intelligence, but then your DPS will suffer for it, or you can opt to go full intelligence/crit so that you hit like a truck, but your casting is much slower so you need to know the fight really well. Anyway, in 2.0 it was that you could mix and max job skills, so you could(and should) in theory level all your mages so that you could get some skills from Summoner to use on your black mage and such. This was interesting at first, BUT having to level a job that you were not interested in so you could play your main better, in addition to adding new jobs every expansion, eventually this was phased out for the role skills system.
Gonna add to what some people have said with some personal opinions and tips.
If you like monk because of combos, I have to highly recommend Dragoon. It has the longest base combo where you then have to fit stuff in between with oGCD abilities. That said, it doesn't get all of the cool stuff into the mid level range (50-60) so it can feel kinda boring while leveling up to that point. Although that is pretty on par with most classes. Monk on the other hand gets 90% of its endgame kit up to level 50. The sad truth about monk is that most of its skills past 50 are incredibly situational which means your gameplay is barely gonna change from now on. It's just a back and forth to get positionals and not much else. It's the class with the least amount of oGCD skills in the dps department. (They might be changing it soon with the new expansion). This is completely subjective but I find it the least fun class to play in the game by quite a hige margin. I'm also pretty sure it's the least played class it's quite a rare sight.
Also, as a gw2 player I also had "auto attack chain" macros at first, but it's definitely a huge no-no. You mention it yourself but you still did it anyway: It IS definitely making you slower on the long run. Even after 2 or 3 full combos if you compare the macro and non-macro versions you will fall behind by one or two actions if using macros.
About achievements: it's actually kinda similar to gw2, you get points and some of them have items (mainly mounts) or title rewards. All 4 tanks get 2 unique mounts each through achievements, and white mage gets one at level 30 as well. You can exchange your achievements in New Gridania, near the amphiteatre. (You can get a Behemoth mount for 6 achivement coins, which is fairly easy to get and pretty early on in the game you'll probably have enough).
I believe this game doesn't have much in terms of build craft because, being fair, it has 18 classes (soon 20) that you can all play on a single character. You can think of those as different builds to the same character. A lot of the complexity comes fromlearning each class' rotations and quirks, most of which don't come into play until the later levels, which is why it can feel bland at the moment. For example on paladin, there's a skill that improves your physical damage for 20ish seconds. Later on you also get a skill which improves your magical damage, while making all your spells instant, creating two distinct phases. Very often these kinds of phases have finishers to them as well, something monk lacks.
I think you should enjoy while the base game content is still sort of fresh to try and level other classes. A lot of people recommend playing the main story through as well and it will definitely help you level up faster (having a class at 80 gives you a 100% exp boost for all other classes or something ridiculous like that).
For "transmuting", you can use glamour prisms to change an object's appearance into another. However, you'll have to use a crystal every time. There's an alternative: in all Inns, in your room, there's a Glamour Dresser where you can store any item you want to keep the skin of, which also costs a crystal, but can then be applied infinitely through Glamour Plates (which can be linked to each class).
Only watched till up to 48:00 so I might drop some more tips later on!
I have a love for both GW2 and FF14 with over 2k hours in both! I am delighted to hear that you're trying FF14 out 🙂 As a fan of your X, X-2 and XII playthroughs I think you'll find joy with how FF14 incorporates material from other FF games be it something very minor, or something larger. I've always wondered what you'd think of FF14 seeing that you've done numerous playthroughs of FF games, but you also mainly cover GW2 (an MMORPG). Best of both worlds!
The only way I made it through the core game is with friends. It was so boring but hanging out with friends made it tolerable. My friends fell away from the game and a couple years ago I gave Heavensward a go on my own. I really enjoy the dungeons and it scratch's a very different itch than GW2. Like you said, no buildcraft or creativity in character building. Eventually the quests just wore me down and I just could not take travelling back and forth. I finished Heavensward but didn't make it much further.
There is an option to make your character turn towards target. You shouldn't macro much in this game. Mostly just put a aoe circle on target, and add a party chat message that you are ressing target (so Co healer knows and doesn't waste a raise)
The reason you don't wanna macro pretty much anything else is because it doesn't interact well with server tics. And the longer the fight is the more your macro's abilities will clip, fall off, and you'll end up behind in effeciancy and damage.
Tanks an healer are sadly in a spot where they got robbed of all unique gameplay to achieve more "harmony". We are all hoping they'll add it back. Cause unless you are a gunbreaker tank or a astro healer you don't get much unique stuff as a tank/healer.
And just a note, For achievement points you go to gridania and there is an npc to exchange them for rewards.
I am really glad you decided to make this stream on FFXIV and I look forward to more. Honestly, I think you really should post this kind of stuff on your main channel. Obviously cut it, make some editing, but put it on the main channel. People are interested in this stuff and especially about in your perspective on it. They are capable to separate when something it's a hot take on a game and when something it's a big production. Sometimes I feel you are just too paralized by the notion that you need to make big productions or long series about anything that goes on the main channel, but in the end you cannot keep up and abandon some of it along the way. Be more confident, your insight about FFXIV on stream was already more informative and insightful than most videos that float around YouTube. Go for it. I mean, it's you channel, you do you. But I think you would make a fantastic MMORPG youtuber all around, even though with a healthy major focus on GW2. There's plenty of morons that make thousands of views messing around with MMOs and their content doesn't hold a candle to your insight. And btw, sure: you definitely need to get into the following FFXIV expansions, where the meat of the game story is. EoD is not coming out until 2022, it's the perfect time to do it. And there's more of an audience for that right now with the latest FFXIV expansion coming in the Fall.
The great thing about gw2 is that youre able to comfortable play other games besides it. I picked up ff14 a few weeks ago and love it. I wasnt enjoying arr that much because of the way the story and quests are told (the story itself is pretty nice), but i kept playing and still enjoyed my time. Right now im at the end of heavensward and love the game. The gameplay can be an issue for some people and i personally dont like the rigid and slow rotations at all but it keeps getting better and i want to save my final verdict on that for when i reach max level. Great to see you trying the game out.
Shirk is a tank only skill, that's why you couldn't find it on monk.
About PvP: it's definitely not anywhere near what GW2 does. It's basically like a small scale WvW where big teams fight eachother, your skills get turned into specific PvP versions with their own balance and slightly simplified rotations (similar to gw2, this is actually a decent way to check some of your future skills before you commit to leveling a class, but bear in mind it's a very lite version of the class).
A little more detail about macros and why you should not use them for auto attack chains: In PvP your main rotation is simplified into a single button press because they do not have "conditional" combos. In PvE, there are many classes which may have to do different skills in the chain depending on the situation (monk being one of them if I recall correctly). For example, one of your main skills applies a DoT effect. When you do your full combo rotation, which is a 6 skill combo, by the time you finish it you would apply the DoT again. However, the DoT lasts enough to do 2 full combo chains, which means instead of using the DoT again, you'd use the third skill in the chain instead. Similarly, since I brought up Dragoon on my last comment: At the higher levels, dragoon's rotation consists of 2 main 3-button combos, that you bridge between through 2 skills that have to be used from the back or the sides, alternatively. So it goes something like this (A and B being the bridge skills, and 123 being combo 1, 2*3* being combo 2, both combos share the first skill): 1 – 2 – 3 – A – B – 1 – 2* – 3* – B – A (repeat) It's a longer string, but it's fairly static, so you kinda develop muscle memory for it. In between skills you're intended to fit the oGCD skills, of which dragoon has a ton with jumps, buffs, stance swaps and a tether mechanic later on.
So while the game doesn't have a lot of buildcraft, there's quite a bit of time investment in mastering the classes, learning to also coordinate your buffs with your party. This game has a particularity with its buff system where damage and most importantly DoTs "snapshot" to the buffs you had when they are applied. If you apply a 20 second DoT with a damage buff that has 2 seconds to expire, your entire DoT duration will take benefit of that buff even after it falls off you, so long as you don't override it with an unbuffed application of the DoT. Unlike GW2 where DoTs tick with your current might or any other buffs you may have.
Some tips for a cleaner experience: I highly advice you disable Pop-Up Text. It'll clean up the UI a lot, as you won't see the damage numbers from literaly every other action your party members do. It also removes every buff they get which 90% of the time is not relevant to you. For example, monk stance swaps which happen constantly throughout their combo are a buff. (This can be found in Character configuration > Ui settings > HUD. I'd say keep Flying text on since it does tell you how much damage your main skills do, and if they direct hit (bigger number) or if they crit (exclamation mark), or both (big number with two exclamation marks). Also, DoTs can crit in this game. If you ever play a healer, their heals can also crit, which is very important for Scholar in particular.
Something I forgot to mention, there is buildcraft in ff14! It's just hidden away in the Blue Mage class. I think you might actually really enjoy that one and all the challenges surrounding it. There's around 100 spells they can unlock currently, of which you have to chose 30 for your build. They can also be any of the 3 roles. You unlock spells by killing monsters and learning their magic.
For your armory problem, I recently activated a setting where new equipment doesn’t automatically get added to my armory and just goes to my inventory like normal loot. That cleans up the armory a lot, but you’ll have to remember to add in stuff you buy from tomestones and get from job quests.
WP: these GW2 episodes during COVID are really hit hard by the lack of VA. GW2 benefits so much from all the VA.
WP: Anet wastes money on too much VA.
I realize there is some subtly here, it's not all or nothing but it was really true with those COVID episodes just having grunting. It felt quite different
I think you've pretty much got the idea by now, but there IS a non-zero amount of buildcraft in FF14… but it's barely more than a technicality and I think a lot of people wouldn't even notice if it was gone. It's only important for the really hard stuff, and it's not as important as just knowing how your class works and what to do in the moment. It's actually kind of interesting, because what that's done is give the community as laser focus on minutia like that. Like the people who kept berating you for your macros – the time between skill activations is one of a tiny few things that people get to optimize so they get really serious about it. It's only a matter of time before people start trying to tell you about things like weave windows and cooldown alignment if they haven't already. Since you were asking for UI suggestions, I will point out there are options to simplify your class mechanic meters (such as your chakra as monk) which makes them less pretty, but easier to read (usually) and take up less screen space. I use it on some jobs but not on my main. Your comments on ARR's post main story stuff and flying on those maps is interesting since older players had a very… different experience. Your chat pointed out flying was only recently added – what I'm not sure you've heard is that they also shortened and streamlined that whole stretch of quests around the same time. It used to be downright insulting how much busywork you had to do between ARR and HW as a new player. I vaguely remember being made to deliver milk at one point… I'm not quite clear as I definitely started skimming the text before long, just paying enough attention to know when something actually important started happening. AND we had to stay on the ground the whole time. Part of me wants to argue when you say ARR is way worse than GW2, because at least ARR presents a somewhat cohesive story, but then I remember how much of a slog it was… Since I don't think anyone answered, Shirk is a tank action. There are some boss fights where Tanks need to pass aggro back and forth, and even when it's not required it's occasionally useful to share the load. Anyway, as for the content I'd like to see, what I'd MOST want to see is an exhaustive LP like you've done with other games, but even if you were willing to put in that much effort it's a bit tricky to do with ever evolving MMOs – not that you need me to tell you that. Failing that, I think the slow, thorough exploration of the game at your own pace is worth watching as it is. Whatever you want to talk most about will probably make the best videos, and as for streams, I'd bet money that everyone just wants to see your reactions to the story, plus general comparisons to GW2.
cthun in aq40 eats u like the worm, the mechanichs is the same, kinda. wow has taken lots from gw2 too. its good that they all look at each other and pay "homage" to what they can grasp as good design.
– I was thinking recently 'i wonder if woodenpotatoes is going to play ffxiv that would be fun' and immediately had the realization that you'd probably not like this game very much, and there's a lot of reasons for that. xiv is a really different game from gw2, it's not really…an rpg. it has a lot of things that resemble rpg systems on the surface, but i think going into it with the idea that it's an mmorpg disappoints a lot of people. At its core it's a multiplayer boss rush with a focus on story, and if you aren't to the point where you're engaging with either the bosses, with the community or the story then it's going to be hard to enjoy.
– I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that the queue is fake. the ffxiv dev team doesn't really do things like that. I've had queues on and off since shadowbringers launched, back then the servers were full enough they temporarily booted afk-ing players from the servers to make room for people.
– Dark Knight (and tanks in general) are in a weird place at the moment, a lot of their skills were removed and they're extreeeemely basic now. A few dps's are like that too, I've heard a lot of people complaining about monk. It makes sense that you're having trouble enjoying the game if you're really hyper focused on your class, unlike gw2 in which gameplay is very class focused, ffxiv is very encounter focused, and if you've been playing with people who already know the fight (which you probably are) then they're going to collectively do really well, which gives the illusion that the game is really boring and easy. If you were with a group of players at the same point in the game as your character then it'd replicate the difficulty of the content (Im at the point where you're talking about ilvl synching and yeah a lot of the content is more fun synched but i understand if people didn't want to do that). The higher your ilvl the more mistakes you can make in an encounter, and if everyone has max ilvl for the encounter you can more or less ignore mechanics.
– They don't really want to sell you level skips, the game director didn't want to add them at first but people requested it enough that they eventually did.
– levequests are a kind of repeatable quest, you can ignore them unless you're going for specific rewards. They're really good if you're a crafter, you can get a lot of gil making coffee biscuits. Fates are really bad my first reaction was that they were like gw2 dynamic events but worse and they really are.
– I don't think this is spoilers, the theme of the game in general (to me) is not letting what you've lost consume you and making the most of your future. One of the main writers said that to her the game's story was just about a hero who saves the world, and she guesses that everyone will have a different idea of what the themes are.
– So, role quests (tank quests, healer quests, dps quests) are the replacements for class quests, since they were getting to the point where making a whole questline for every class every expansion was getting unmanageable.
– If you think xiv's version of living world quests are long NOW then you should've seen them before they cut out a lot of them. post expansion updates are paced much better after this, plus theres more dungeons/trials between story quests.
I recently left FFXIV for personal reasons but I had been playing it off and on since 1.0 and here are a few of my thoughts:
I HATE strict rotations in games, which is funny to say after spending so much time playing FFXIV, but that's where Red Mage and Dancer come in. Dancer was the most fun for me, but both classes focus on proc-based 'rotations' so you're constantly switching up which abilities you're using based on what's available. Dancer also has a dash ability and focuses on team buffs. Red Mage focuses around balancing your black and white magic while also changing up which spells you use based on procs. Also, it has a backflip and can revive people. Both classes have a heal of sorts but they aren't good enough to main heal. Black mage is also fun but that's mostly just for the visuals and big numbers.
Personally, I found that FFXIV kind of shines where GW2 fails, at least last I played of GW2. GW2 created a lot of interesting plot threads that they then either abandoned, completely retconned, or just fizzled out. FFXIV ties side content plot into the world and main story pretty often and goes really in depth with the lore it creates. Character animations and attention to detail in FFXIV are outstanding. You can actually customize your character's appearance (hairstyle and makeup stuff) without having to recreate the character or paying real money. You can play every class on a single character but still make alts if you want. Boss fights/mechanics in FFXIV are a lot of fun later on too, sort of a half puzzle half battle situation.
I would equally say that GW2 shines in some spots where FFXIV falls a little flat as well. GW2 has really great world exploration in comparison. It also allows for character build customization, though the whole 'meta build' thing makes that kind of a moot point. FFXIV's PvP is also pretty bad but MMO PvPs tend to just be bad in general imo.
I'll also add that both FFXIV's and GW2's dynamic events kind of suck 99% of the time. You show up, wait around for a few minutes, then 50+ people mob the boss and down it in a minute or less.
Garnet, I don't know if you have already, but you should really look up the Reddit New Player guide it would really help!
Also, I recommend putting back the HP and MP bars, it really helps with visibility and will be essential for Dark Knight as you level it. (Dark Knight uses MP or incoming damage for damage burst)
Edit, using lockon will really hurt your map awareness going forward and macros are always slower than pressing skills directly unfortunately!
Agreed that its popular cause it sets a super low bar and also agree that ff14 is kinda fresh air from gw2, its so brain dead relaxing tbh. ''begining of game is all bad and depreciated content'' nah the whole game is this way, only the story changes.
Comparing ffxiv to season 1 gw2 is funny considering you can still play FFXIV original content and say its not good now but you can only look through your memory of GW2 living world and stuff you experienced over like 8 years ago. But please keep playing, even if you dont stream the whole thing keep these updates coming. It would be fun to watch how your opinion changes over time. Just try and document moments that you think may be big to the story for your reaction.
Also id just focus on the main story and raids for now. Doing everything as you dont already seem to like the game too much wont be fun for you. I would not skip the story otherwise you wont like this game.
Also you will care about your stats at higher levels! Materia is for min/maxing and you can do stuff like being a fast casing Black Mage or a slower harder hitting one. It isnt as indepth as Guild Wars is and I will say that part is a little bit dissapointing but I do think it allows them to craft the PVE far better than Guild Wars and all the classes get pretty fun to play at max level.
Been waiting for this!!!!
Ah yeah, I am currently investing my time in Sword of Legends so it'll be cool to see how this goes. I might try this out. Been hearing a lot that there's a lot of busy work to get to the good stuff.
I have tried the trial for this game 2 times, but always fell off it, the sub fee also didn't help to continue to play either.
I don't blame you at all for being skeptical for the base game's content. 2.0 was made on absolutely minimal budget because of the failure of 1.0, it also had a truckload of setup to make and it did not turn out as well as it could have, by a long shot. That it came out at all was a hell of a gamble for Square Enix. I do wish there was some other way around it, but it's hard to excuse skipping it all until where it "gets fun" because people will get lost AF with all the characters and concepts. The skips are not targeted at new players but stuff like alts for example, since most stuff is story-locked, it makes it so you can get on an alt in a new data center and get raid-ready fairly quickly to play with your friends or whatever, something which will go away soon with the data center travel system.
Also, macros should be kept out of combat skills whenever possible because of the queuing system, which results in a DPS loss pretty frequently.
A few other things are also incorrect, but you'll learn with time.
Edit:Ah, also, build craft was more important than it is now at the beginning of 2.0 actually! These days it's mostly two choices for example: for a mage you can choose between having a more agile playstyle with more spell speed and less intelligence, but then your DPS will suffer for it, or you can opt to go full intelligence/crit so that you hit like a truck, but your casting is much slower so you need to know the fight really well. Anyway, in 2.0 it was that you could mix and max job skills, so you could(and should) in theory level all your mages so that you could get some skills from Summoner to use on your black mage and such. This was interesting at first, BUT having to level a job that you were not interested in so you could play your main better, in addition to adding new jobs every expansion, eventually this was phased out for the role skills system.
I'm that guy patiently waiting for the rest of the ff12 play through…
Thank you for such an honest impression. FFXIV is a good game but it's not really anything special in my opinion.
Gonna add to what some people have said with some personal opinions and tips.
If you like monk because of combos, I have to highly recommend Dragoon. It has the longest base combo where you then have to fit stuff in between with oGCD abilities. That said, it doesn't get all of the cool stuff into the mid level range (50-60) so it can feel kinda boring while leveling up to that point. Although that is pretty on par with most classes. Monk on the other hand gets 90% of its endgame kit up to level 50. The sad truth about monk is that most of its skills past 50 are incredibly situational which means your gameplay is barely gonna change from now on. It's just a back and forth to get positionals and not much else. It's the class with the least amount of oGCD skills in the dps department. (They might be changing it soon with the new expansion). This is completely subjective but I find it the least fun class to play in the game by quite a hige margin. I'm also pretty sure it's the least played class it's quite a rare sight.
Also, as a gw2 player I also had "auto attack chain" macros at first, but it's definitely a huge no-no. You mention it yourself but you still did it anyway: It IS definitely making you slower on the long run. Even after 2 or 3 full combos if you compare the macro and non-macro versions you will fall behind by one or two actions if using macros.
About achievements: it's actually kinda similar to gw2, you get points and some of them have items (mainly mounts) or title rewards. All 4 tanks get 2 unique mounts each through achievements, and white mage gets one at level 30 as well. You can exchange your achievements in New Gridania, near the amphiteatre. (You can get a Behemoth mount for 6 achivement coins, which is fairly easy to get and pretty early on in the game you'll probably have enough).
I believe this game doesn't have much in terms of build craft because, being fair, it has 18 classes (soon 20) that you can all play on a single character. You can think of those as different builds to the same character. A lot of the complexity comes fromlearning each class' rotations and quirks, most of which don't come into play until the later levels, which is why it can feel bland at the moment. For example on paladin, there's a skill that improves your physical damage for 20ish seconds. Later on you also get a skill which improves your magical damage, while making all your spells instant, creating two distinct phases. Very often these kinds of phases have finishers to them as well, something monk lacks.
I think you should enjoy while the base game content is still sort of fresh to try and level other classes. A lot of people recommend playing the main story through as well and it will definitely help you level up faster (having a class at 80 gives you a 100% exp boost for all other classes or something ridiculous like that).
For "transmuting", you can use glamour prisms to change an object's appearance into another. However, you'll have to use a crystal every time. There's an alternative: in all Inns, in your room, there's a Glamour Dresser where you can store any item you want to keep the skin of, which also costs a crystal, but can then be applied infinitely through Glamour Plates (which can be linked to each class).
Only watched till up to 48:00 so I might drop some more tips later on!
I have a love for both GW2 and FF14 with over 2k hours in both! I am delighted to hear that you're trying FF14 out 🙂 As a fan of your X, X-2 and XII playthroughs I think you'll find joy with how FF14 incorporates material from other FF games be it something very minor, or something larger. I've always wondered what you'd think of FF14 seeing that you've done numerous playthroughs of FF games, but you also mainly cover GW2 (an MMORPG). Best of both worlds!
The only way I made it through the core game is with friends. It was so boring but hanging out with friends made it tolerable. My friends fell away from the game and a couple years ago I gave Heavensward a go on my own. I really enjoy the dungeons and it scratch's a very different itch than GW2. Like you said, no buildcraft or creativity in character building. Eventually the quests just wore me down and I just could not take travelling back and forth. I finished Heavensward but didn't make it much further.
guild wars 2 was marketed as a 'breath of fresh air' in comparison to the traditional MMO market. i wouldn't describe it as that in practice at all.
Was this in the middle of the night?
There is an option to make your character turn towards target.
You shouldn't macro much in this game. Mostly just put a aoe circle on target, and add a party chat message that you are ressing target (so Co healer knows and doesn't waste a raise)
The reason you don't wanna macro pretty much anything else is because it doesn't interact well with server tics. And the longer the fight is the more your macro's abilities will clip, fall off, and you'll end up behind in effeciancy and damage.
Tanks an healer are sadly in a spot where they got robbed of all unique gameplay to achieve more "harmony". We are all hoping they'll add it back. Cause unless you are a gunbreaker tank or a astro healer you don't get much unique stuff as a tank/healer.
And just a note, For achievement points you go to gridania and there is an npc to exchange them for rewards.
There’s something off about the graphics, I mean it’s pretty but not that pretty, the textures seem off, disconnected from the character
I am really glad you decided to make this stream on FFXIV and I look forward to more. Honestly, I think you really should post this kind of stuff on your main channel. Obviously cut it, make some editing, but put it on the main channel. People are interested in this stuff and especially about in your perspective on it. They are capable to separate when something it's a hot take on a game and when something it's a big production. Sometimes I feel you are just too paralized by the notion that you need to make big productions or long series about anything that goes on the main channel, but in the end you cannot keep up and abandon some of it along the way. Be more confident, your insight about FFXIV on stream was already more informative and insightful than most videos that float around YouTube. Go for it.
I mean, it's you channel, you do you. But I think you would make a fantastic MMORPG youtuber all around, even though with a healthy major focus on GW2. There's plenty of morons that make thousands of views messing around with MMOs and their content doesn't hold a candle to your insight.
And btw, sure: you definitely need to get into the following FFXIV expansions, where the meat of the game story is. EoD is not coming out until 2022, it's the perfect time to do it. And there's more of an audience for that right now with the latest FFXIV expansion coming in the Fall.
Nooooooooo you're a cat boi!
The great thing about gw2 is that youre able to comfortable play other games besides it. I picked up ff14 a few weeks ago and love it. I wasnt enjoying arr that much because of the way the story and quests are told (the story itself is pretty nice), but i kept playing and still enjoyed my time. Right now im at the end of heavensward and love the game. The gameplay can be an issue for some people and i personally dont like the rigid and slow rotations at all but it keeps getting better and i want to save my final verdict on that for when i reach max level. Great to see you trying the game out.
Watched a bit more so a few more things:
Shirk is a tank only skill, that's why you couldn't find it on monk.
About PvP: it's definitely not anywhere near what GW2 does. It's basically like a small scale WvW where big teams fight eachother, your skills get turned into specific PvP versions with their own balance and slightly simplified rotations (similar to gw2, this is actually a decent way to check some of your future skills before you commit to leveling a class, but bear in mind it's a very lite version of the class).
A little more detail about macros and why you should not use them for auto attack chains:
In PvP your main rotation is simplified into a single button press because they do not have "conditional" combos. In PvE, there are many classes which may have to do different skills in the chain depending on the situation (monk being one of them if I recall correctly). For example, one of your main skills applies a DoT effect. When you do your full combo rotation, which is a 6 skill combo, by the time you finish it you would apply the DoT again. However, the DoT lasts enough to do 2 full combo chains, which means instead of using the DoT again, you'd use the third skill in the chain instead.
Similarly, since I brought up Dragoon on my last comment:
At the higher levels, dragoon's rotation consists of 2 main 3-button combos, that you bridge between through 2 skills that have to be used from the back or the sides, alternatively. So it goes something like this (A and B being the bridge skills, and 123 being combo 1, 2*3* being combo 2, both combos share the first skill):
1 – 2 – 3 – A – B – 1 – 2* – 3* – B – A (repeat)
It's a longer string, but it's fairly static, so you kinda develop muscle memory for it. In between skills you're intended to fit the oGCD skills, of which dragoon has a ton with jumps, buffs, stance swaps and a tether mechanic later on.
So while the game doesn't have a lot of buildcraft, there's quite a bit of time investment in mastering the classes, learning to also coordinate your buffs with your party. This game has a particularity with its buff system where damage and most importantly DoTs "snapshot" to the buffs you had when they are applied. If you apply a 20 second DoT with a damage buff that has 2 seconds to expire, your entire DoT duration will take benefit of that buff even after it falls off you, so long as you don't override it with an unbuffed application of the DoT. Unlike GW2 where DoTs tick with your current might or any other buffs you may have.
Some tips for a cleaner experience: I highly advice you disable Pop-Up Text. It'll clean up the UI a lot, as you won't see the damage numbers from literaly every other action your party members do. It also removes every buff they get which 90% of the time is not relevant to you. For example, monk stance swaps which happen constantly throughout their combo are a buff. (This can be found in Character configuration > Ui settings > HUD.
I'd say keep Flying text on since it does tell you how much damage your main skills do, and if they direct hit (bigger number) or if they crit (exclamation mark), or both (big number with two exclamation marks). Also, DoTs can crit in this game. If you ever play a healer, their heals can also crit, which is very important for Scholar in particular.
Something I forgot to mention, there is buildcraft in ff14! It's just hidden away in the Blue Mage class. I think you might actually really enjoy that one and all the challenges surrounding it.
There's around 100 spells they can unlock currently, of which you have to chose 30 for your build. They can also be any of the 3 roles. You unlock spells by killing monsters and learning their magic.
Also you made me realize how much I want a proper bestiary with a model viewer in FF14, sadly there currently isn't one!
Wow, this last week I started playing FF14, and lamented that I couldn't find a WP equivalent on Youtube. And here you are! 😀
For your armory problem, I recently activated a setting where new equipment doesn’t automatically get added to my armory and just goes to my inventory like normal loot. That cleans up the armory a lot, but you’ll have to remember to add in stuff you buy from tomestones and get from job quests.
WP: these GW2 episodes during COVID are really hit hard by the lack of VA. GW2 benefits so much from all the VA.
WP: Anet wastes money on too much VA.
I realize there is some subtly here, it's not all or nothing but it was really true with those COVID episodes just having grunting. It felt quite different
It’s so odd to see WP complain about not getting to skip the story when he complains so much about how GW2 skips everyone past LS1 and such.
I think you've pretty much got the idea by now, but there IS a non-zero amount of buildcraft in FF14… but it's barely more than a technicality and I think a lot of people wouldn't even notice if it was gone. It's only important for the really hard stuff, and it's not as important as just knowing how your class works and what to do in the moment. It's actually kind of interesting, because what that's done is give the community as laser focus on minutia like that. Like the people who kept berating you for your macros – the time between skill activations is one of a tiny few things that people get to optimize so they get really serious about it. It's only a matter of time before people start trying to tell you about things like weave windows and cooldown alignment if they haven't already.
Since you were asking for UI suggestions, I will point out there are options to simplify your class mechanic meters (such as your chakra as monk) which makes them less pretty, but easier to read (usually) and take up less screen space. I use it on some jobs but not on my main.
Your comments on ARR's post main story stuff and flying on those maps is interesting since older players had a very… different experience. Your chat pointed out flying was only recently added – what I'm not sure you've heard is that they also shortened and streamlined that whole stretch of quests around the same time. It used to be downright insulting how much busywork you had to do between ARR and HW as a new player. I vaguely remember being made to deliver milk at one point… I'm not quite clear as I definitely started skimming the text before long, just paying enough attention to know when something actually important started happening. AND we had to stay on the ground the whole time. Part of me wants to argue when you say ARR is way worse than GW2, because at least ARR presents a somewhat cohesive story, but then I remember how much of a slog it was…
Since I don't think anyone answered, Shirk is a tank action. There are some boss fights where Tanks need to pass aggro back and forth, and even when it's not required it's occasionally useful to share the load.
Anyway, as for the content I'd like to see, what I'd MOST want to see is an exhaustive LP like you've done with other games, but even if you were willing to put in that much effort it's a bit tricky to do with ever evolving MMOs – not that you need me to tell you that. Failing that, I think the slow, thorough exploration of the game at your own pace is worth watching as it is. Whatever you want to talk most about will probably make the best videos, and as for streams, I'd bet money that everyone just wants to see your reactions to the story, plus general comparisons to GW2.
I think GW2 recently made it so you can buy viper's exotic things from the trading post
cthun in aq40 eats u like the worm, the mechanichs is the same, kinda. wow has taken lots from gw2 too. its good that they all look at each other and pay "homage" to what they can grasp as good design.
while i watch im typing some ramply thoughts:
– I was thinking recently 'i wonder if woodenpotatoes is going to play ffxiv that would be fun' and immediately had the realization that you'd probably not like this game very much, and there's a lot of reasons for that. xiv is a really different game from gw2, it's not really…an rpg. it has a lot of things that resemble rpg systems on the surface, but i think going into it with the idea that it's an mmorpg disappoints a lot of people. At its core it's a multiplayer boss rush with a focus on story, and if you aren't to the point where you're engaging with either the bosses, with the community or the story then it's going to be hard to enjoy.
– I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that the queue is fake. the ffxiv dev team doesn't really do things like that. I've had queues on and off since shadowbringers launched, back then the servers were full enough they temporarily booted afk-ing players from the servers to make room for people.
– Dark Knight (and tanks in general) are in a weird place at the moment, a lot of their skills were removed and they're extreeeemely basic now. A few dps's are like that too, I've heard a lot of people complaining about monk. It makes sense that you're having trouble enjoying the game if you're really hyper focused on your class, unlike gw2 in which gameplay is very class focused, ffxiv is very encounter focused, and if you've been playing with people who already know the fight (which you probably are) then they're going to collectively do really well, which gives the illusion that the game is really boring and easy. If you were with a group of players at the same point in the game as your character then it'd replicate the difficulty of the content (Im at the point where you're talking about ilvl synching and yeah a lot of the content is more fun synched but i understand if people didn't want to do that). The higher your ilvl the more mistakes you can make in an encounter, and if everyone has max ilvl for the encounter you can more or less ignore mechanics.
– They don't really want to sell you level skips, the game director didn't want to add them at first but people requested it enough that they eventually did.
– levequests are a kind of repeatable quest, you can ignore them unless you're going for specific rewards. They're really good if you're a crafter, you can get a lot of gil making coffee biscuits. Fates are really bad my first reaction was that they were like gw2 dynamic events but worse and they really are.
– I don't think this is spoilers, the theme of the game in general (to me) is not letting what you've lost consume you and making the most of your future. One of the main writers said that to her the game's story was just about a hero who saves the world, and she guesses that everyone will have a different idea of what the themes are.
– So, role quests (tank quests, healer quests, dps quests) are the replacements for class quests, since they were getting to the point where making a whole questline for every class every expansion was getting unmanageable.
– If you think xiv's version of living world quests are long NOW then you should've seen them before they cut out a lot of them. post expansion updates are paced much better after this, plus theres more dungeons/trials between story quests.
– minfilia more like minfiller-ia haha
half a second is a fraction of a second. don't know what that guy was complaining about :p
1:53:53 actually it was link to the past
FF14 kicks WP out for being F2P player
GW2 music plays in the background
I recently left FFXIV for personal reasons but I had been playing it off and on since 1.0 and here are a few of my thoughts:
I HATE strict rotations in games, which is funny to say after spending so much time playing FFXIV, but that's where Red Mage and Dancer come in. Dancer was the most fun for me, but both classes focus on proc-based 'rotations' so you're constantly switching up which abilities you're using based on what's available. Dancer also has a dash ability and focuses on team buffs. Red Mage focuses around balancing your black and white magic while also changing up which spells you use based on procs. Also, it has a backflip and can revive people. Both classes have a heal of sorts but they aren't good enough to main heal. Black mage is also fun but that's mostly just for the visuals and big numbers.
Personally, I found that FFXIV kind of shines where GW2 fails, at least last I played of GW2. GW2 created a lot of interesting plot threads that they then either abandoned, completely retconned, or just fizzled out. FFXIV ties side content plot into the world and main story pretty often and goes really in depth with the lore it creates. Character animations and attention to detail in FFXIV are outstanding. You can actually customize your character's appearance (hairstyle and makeup stuff) without having to recreate the character or paying real money. You can play every class on a single character but still make alts if you want. Boss fights/mechanics in FFXIV are a lot of fun later on too, sort of a half puzzle half battle situation.
I would equally say that GW2 shines in some spots where FFXIV falls a little flat as well. GW2 has really great world exploration in comparison. It also allows for character build customization, though the whole 'meta build' thing makes that kind of a moot point. FFXIV's PvP is also pretty bad but MMO PvPs tend to just be bad in general imo.
I'll also add that both FFXIV's and GW2's dynamic events kind of suck 99% of the time. You show up, wait around for a few minutes, then 50+ people mob the boss and down it in a minute or less.
Garnet, I don't know if you have already, but you should really look up the Reddit New Player guide it would really help!
Also, I recommend putting back the HP and MP bars, it really helps with visibility and will be essential for Dark Knight as you level it. (Dark Knight uses MP or incoming damage for damage burst)
Edit, using lockon will really hurt your map awareness going forward and macros are always slower than pressing skills directly unfortunately!