Final Fantasy review after playing the game for 200hours.
0:00 Intro
0:34 Rulez
01:31 Positive 1
02:27 Positive 2
02:51 Positive 3
04:19: Positive 4
05:05 Positive 5
05:55 Positive 5 extended
08:35 Neutral Intro
09:06 Neutral 1
10:32 Neutral 2
11:34 Neutral 3
12:26 Neutral 4
14:19 Neutral 5
15:56 Neutral 6
18:06 Neutral 7
18:56 Negative intro
19:12 Negative 1
19:49 Negative 2
21:03 Negative 3
26:50 Negative 4
34:00 Finale
Discord:
https://discord.gg/YDEq8ax28p
Become Supporter :
https://ko-fi.com/divium
source
Thank you for this honestly. You bring up really good points especially on the character development part. I haven't thought about it that much until now. Good and fair review. Looking forward to the next one.
I liked your review, and honestly the only part I disagree with is the character progression/leveling/materia (eggs lol). Basically, materia does NOT matter unless you are doing endgame Savage/Ultimate/Extreme raiding. Even then, you don't NEED materia, but it adds more dps basically, and can make the difference between clearing and wiping to dps checks. In other words, you SHOULD have endgame materia if you are doing endgame raids, but you don't need them (imo you are trolling if you're doing endgame raids with NO materia haha). I would love to come onto your stream/discord to explain the things I disagree with because, no offense, you have noob takes that you don't really understand. I agree that leveling experience from 1-50 is super fucking boring and there is no way to cheese/get boosted through in game means without paying cash shop. You need to run synced dungeons or do other side content like Palace of the Dead, or Bozja, or even PVP to level your character, with certain methods being faster than others. Also yes, the 1-50 MSQ is very boring at times and has a LOT of filler quests. I think it would be a good idea for devs to go back and condense MSQ and remove all the bullshit filler text lines to speed up 1-50 MSQ for new players who actually want to read everything about lore etc, because a lot of the 1-50 MSQ lore is relevant in Endgame lore. Character stats and gear progression/abilities/rotation is a lot more complicated/intricate than you may think, and tbh I cannot accurately/fully explain it in this limited comment section. If you are interested, I would gladly explain to you anytime with no malding, I promise :)<3. Otherwise, pretty good review. You have some noob takes because you don't quite understand some things (primarily because you are not in Endgame content) but otherwise I agree with a lot of your points. Yes, perhaps the game should explain these things better, but alas it is not so, so YouTube guides will do. Thank you for trying FFXIV. I do wish the game explained the in-game systems better. I had to look up YouTube vids on how to make a good UI/HUD because I didn't want to figure it out on my own. Until then, catch you next time Wizard!
never seen someone with such a strong reaction to the combat usually people just complain about the slow gcd or the few millisecond delay but all in all at least at max level the combat never seemed to be too much of a pain point or else why would people even play the game in the first place
good video mr. wizard, I think if you can keep until the current content your opinion about the combat probably will change (at least partially) because most satisfying actions are after lv70, specially as warrior it's almost impossible to die in dungeons
Good review of the trial. My experience was the same – chokobo music was irritating after listening to it a few times. I tried to give it a second chance but the combat is boring and static. I decided to max out all professions in the trial hoping to find one that is more fun but could find one to make me continue.
For the combat, it feels a bit wrong to be comparing ARPG styles like BDO or LA to gcd based tab target like WoW and FFXIV. The ability to run around pulling the world and oneshoting everything is a design concept for ARPGs which are often more grind based with explosive button mashing combat to get the dopamine flowing. I'd argue WoW is somewhat more inline since it has some grinding based design vs FFXIV which has hardly any. For BDO I could spend hours dash attacking mobs who get oneshot when im grinding silver because that was the design, and when that would grow tedious or boring i could try to do PvP which the gave has a significantly more focus and developed. I feel like peoples claim that FFXIV "respects the players time" it more that it made overall leveling and gearing just significantly easier and you dont need to sacrifice your first born to not have your necklace explode when trying to upgrade. Getting better gear can feel great in BDO but you can also go months without ever getting an upgrade, or worse you fail rng and fall back sometimes. FFXIV seems to have taken the approach of "less problems/friction/drama" if gear just matters less, which makes it more casual/low time investment friendly at the cost of people who want to throw their time into something feeling like they just dont get returns for it.
Combat feels incredibly slow at first, especially with the design of the game being around 2.5s gcd and having the game's server tick system which can desync/skip animations or some skills designed with the animation locks. The fastest a class would generally be is about 1.91s gcd which is still slower compared to 1.5s base of WOW, this is helped some by gaining the woven ogcd/abilities as you level (which the blm you chose is one of the slowest/lowest APM classes). Monk and Ninja are two significantly more APM focused if you want to keep fingers busier.
For the music alot comes from the optional raids and trials, while some is more of the buildup over an MSQ section (the game uses lite motif's which is using small parts of the song and piece by piece adding more as you progress to help build a foundation).
Graphics and char design wise naturally nobody compares to KR games, especially how BDO's is still the golden standard. A fair amount of the game feels white-washed colourwise and lacks saturation, a reshade like G-Shade helps for that at least (Nobody has to my knowledge been banned, including streamers, who use Gshade). FFXIV sadly falls in with alot of older titles now who cant do massive overhauls to the engine without effectively a restart of the IP, and while they're working on doing things like lighting improvements and minor overhauls it'll still never come close.
The devs have tried to design more evergreen content, stuff that states feeling good to do (sometimes for repeated, but often for first times who are new/werent there for the concept launch). The sync down for skills and levels can absolutely feel aggrivating when you got used to the new skills and it just takes your toys, doing a daily leveling on a 89lvl char just to get a lvl 15 dungeon with 3 buttons makes you almost want to just not even queue against that risk. I'd argue the ability to choose between going in with your world power (overlevled/geared and run through content), going in with the sync on to tone you down to similar time-ish, or Minimum Ilvl No Echo to get a more of the time/difficulty mode is a really nice addition to MMOs so players can better experience older content they missed out on.
Gameplay wise I dont think gcd based tab target MMOs (especially FFXIV) are your choice but I think its good to play around and experience different genres/sub-genres of games. You can appreciate things like the gameplay of of one or the art style of another, the direction one dev team takes or the micro systems which improve to the player experience. While FFXIV definitely wont be your main MMO, take your time when you play and just try to enjoy it for what it is I'd say. Honest criticism and critiques are good and can help games and the dev teams to improve and grow the experience for the players.
Based, FF is almost a single player MMO at this point anyway.
Solid and enjoyable review Mr. Wizard!,
For me personally, having played a ton of BDO, B&S, and a little Lost Ark, coming back to FFXIV's combat made me retire from adventuring and start up an Island Sanctuary! XD
Great review.
There is indeed little to no customization available to your character skills and gear. Spellspeed and skillspeed materias (I think you referred to as spirit balls) decreases your gcd (typically 1 latest materia=0.01s). A full set of BiS materias increases your damage by around 5% compared to no materia. In some sense it's good for the non-hardcore player base to do the latest content – don't need to grind anything. Developers also avoid having to balance gear sets.
Combat-wise, the game really does a poor job reflecting the impact of your actions, this is especially true for black mage – there is no feedback from the game telling you whether you're doing well or not. Melee DPS classes are slightly better. Optimal class rotation impacts your dps a lot and is quite strict – but only matters in savage and ultimate difficulty content.
Looking forward to another review (hopefully) if you finish the game. Happy New Year!
From my understanding you enjoyed the story, if you continue on and deepen you're connection with the story and you're hero, then you will become one of us. I see a future video with you telling us you love level 90 combat. As far as gear is concerned gear is pointless, yes you want to keep gear as high as possible but ultimately it's useless.
Ok, so…I've watched your streams while leveling, you didn't equip de class stone not even once, so you did not have all the skills, only the noob ones, even at lvl 60. You didn't even try to do a skill rotation, kept dying because you didn't have any DPS at all to kill the mobs. While in dungeon got carried by mentors pretty much all the time. Even tho we kept telling you to equip the damn BLM stone to get all skills, you kept saying NO.
I've played FFXIV for 3 years, this review isn't accurate. How can one trust this review while you didn't even try to play the game properly? you didn't get to the end game, you did not had all the skills, you did not had gear or anything.
I'm not a part of FFXIV fanbase like we have on reddit that no one can talk shit about FFXIV, but you cannot call this a review, I'm sorry.
Try bdo next for 2 weeks maybe. Just want to know your opinion about the game now. I hard quit 6 months ago and burn my gear to prevent returning but they are releasing 2 classes and i'm tempted.
The leveling from 1 – 50 is really bad. I know it's because they were trying to save the game so they released a bunch of patch content to drag things out while they worked on Heavensward but they really need to go trim a lot of the story down. I think the stretch from finishing ARR to starting Heavensward is around 80 quests and it takes 30+ hours.
Combat wise, it depends on the class. With most of them, melee in particular, once you get into the later levels you start weaving attacks in between other attacks and some can be fast and busy. Ninja and Monk are crazy. But like the pacing of the story, it sucks from 1 – 50.
fantastic review, I always hated FF14 combat when I gave it a shot and dropped it because of that. Lots of copium by people defending this trash combat.
isnt lost ark the same? lv 1-50 is crap for most mmo
Always said the exact same thing about the levelling experience, the story isn't a bad story but the way you experience it was the most repetitive, boring and tedious in any mmo I've played. Even after they cut down on mindless filler it's still such a slog to get through. I would never say this to my guild though, I'd be dead before tomorrow. Never seen a playerbase more rabid and defensive than ffxiv players.
Agree about the combat too, some of the intent and class design behind it is cool but in execution it's the opposite of a crisp and responsive combat system that you find in other mmos. It's fundamentally broken in so many ways and limited all the way down to its server hardware. It desperately needs a full revamp. I think when people defend it they are usually stockholm syndrome'd by ffxiv or have never played an mmo with good feeling combat and don't know what they are missing. It's definitely my one biggest disappointment about the game, high potential but it feels so bad in practice. I think most people that play the game and watch this will know that you're basing this off of early game experience and that you unlock a lot more when you reach endgame, the complexity gets more fun but that doesn't change the sluggish feel that fundamentally ruins the combat.
This game really feels like a relic of the old mmo days in many good ways, but in many bad ways too. The one thing the game still has that other mmos have lost is the social aspect, sense of a world full of players and things to do outside of raiding. FFXIV definitely is my high bar for criticising that lack of side content in other mmos.
too much lost ark , the number increase addiction is too strong with this one…
Brother no offense but you played without a jobstone and like 8 missing spells for the most part of the story. Also it's true that early combat feels abit shitty and boring but judging the combat of the entire game with that early expierience and with no extreme trials and raids done at all is kinda weird.
for all it's faults don't compare wow combat to ff, they're not even in the same universe
i totaly agree with combat thing xD
About pay to win, you forgot retainers in cash shop.