Final Fantasy 14 has been an absolutely wild journey plaything through in 2024 and I have decided to take a retrospective look back at everything I have done and what I think about my first steps into this game.
0:00 Why I Started
0:23 What Really Hooked Me
3:56 Tons of Ways To Play
9:18 Started Slow But Then…
12:27 What I Didn’t Even Notice
15:47 My Favorite Part
18:41 What Will Eventually Happen
20:54 Was All of This Worth It?
24:48 Check This Out
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My dnd friend was like "oh I don't wanna try it, it's 500 $ for all the expansion…" I had to tell him he'd have at least 150 hours of gameplay just in the trial.
As someone that played the 1.0 version of the game, this iteration is vastly more playable and enjoyable. Yes, the ARR part of the story is probably the driest part to get through. It has the responsibility of setting up all the groundwork for the next 4 expansion of the game; which is where you get all your payoff. That's not saying ARR is bad, rather it's laying down the groundwork so later expansions don't have to give some random exposition as to why things are a certain way.
seeing this video after i just finished endwalker last night and i'm on the floor, never in a thousand years would i have expected the story that started in arr to end like THAT and im still crying over it if i think too hard over it. watching these videos makes it all the more impressive to see how far we've come. the journey was really worth it after all
I think the lack of individual job builds loses necessity due to the ability to freely change jobs. You want to play differently, you play a different job.
I just started playing but I'm afraid I won't make it through the story before the new expansion 😅
The reason as to why their no focus on player customization in regards to skills and points assignment for stats is as yoshi-p has stated because players will focus too much on min maxing and in the end wont really have a character that is based on themselves but rather focus on meta or what the community is looking for when it comes to raiding. In fact, we had skill assignments back in 2.0, but it really didn't fit well with the game design.
Just fyi. You will grow over the next months as you progress through the story. You will likely see numbers you havent had before. The moment you finish the MSQ, there will be a SHARP drop off. It happens with every content creator that comes to try the game from another one. There isnt a lot at end game to hold viewer attention. Many people say they are now an FF streamer because of their huge success, but its incredibly hard to maintain MSQ numbers.
Great content, fantastic to hear you've joined the club as a story enjoyer. Hopefully you explore and find out what other content you enjoy as you go.
The lack of skill trees in FFXIV makes the game way easier to balance for the devs – smart move, IMO.
There is a bit of personal variety possible at end game if you get into savage raiding and start pentamelding your gear, but the differences are marginal.
I was halfway through HW on the free trial when I decided to pay. I knew I wanted to continue playing, and I was fed up of being capped at 300k gil and no access to the market board.
Btw, you have to pay for the current game as well as the sub, and then again for each new expansion. I feel it's fair because the new content updates land to a very regular schedule.
Hi dad! (If I may call you that) – Looking forward to you doing Crystal tower & Coils and such. 🙂
Great video! Glad you are enjoying the game and will hopefully continue to the end!!
The choosing you build thing was eroded from ffxiv. We used ti hsve cross clsss skills. But ultimately, you need to respec every instsnce type, or yoy settle for a build that's good for one type of content, so it was removed from the base PVE experience. That said, many players play all jobs of their role snd they choose the hob best for a given instance. E.g. choosing DRK over PLD for a specific fight.
That said, in special content in later expansions, they gave special abilities or consumables thst augment your job. I loved playing WHM in a piece of ShB because you tranform into a super DPS. There's also dueld in Bozja and you can devise a special setup that must have certain elements to clear. That type of content might scratch yhe customization itch.
Fun fact about the slow beggining: they choose to do it that way because they considered the possible players that where FF fans but had no experience in mmos and it automatically includes the everyone that has no experience in mmos, be they an FF fan or not. 😄
Great video! I'll continue to lurk in here for sure! 😆
It’s far from over yet
What a joy to tag along on your adventure! I'm glad you're enjoying it, and excited for you to see what's to come. "We're on a roller coaster that only goes up!"
Something I'd like to reinforce from what you say in the video, yeah, combat starts really slow… Global Cooldown lasts 2.5sec. Atrocious, I know. But as you progress your character and unlock more skills, that feeling changes because most classes make use of off-global cooldown skills, which become fillers while you're waiting for the 2.5 GCD to comeback. Some job rotations even use 2 skills between the GCDs which make combat pace faster, so yeah, the beginning is slow because you don't have all the kit available to fill in these gaps but it improves a lot later.
And yeah, walking advertisement we become. Although I'm more used to saying that Yoshi-P is a Primal and we're tempered 🤣
FF14 is one of those games where the investment really is worth it. The fact that you've still got Coils of Bahamut (which I highly recommend before Heavensward) and post-ARR before Heavensward and Stormblood, both of which are part of the Free Trial just makes me excited to see the rest of your journey
I think what a lot of people don't take into account for plot is you are, in the end, still an adventurer. You start from nothing, and you build up your reputation but even with that you STILL need to work in the end. You need money, and you love your job. And it's WONDERFUL.
Great video. Glad to see new people falling in love with FF. Been playing since 1.0 and have enjoyed it. Give a healing class a try. I love healing in FF. so much fun. I was a Scholar main before Sage came out. Good luck out there!
W Dad
Not to be pushy: But given your experience playing other mmos, arpgs, etc, you really ought to check out Extreme Trials. Doing them with a premade group will be a genuine challenge and a blast, I guarantee it. Even moreso if you go in blind. Galactic (and many others) could help you unlock and figure them out.
the cool thing in eorzea is, the people doesnt neccessarily hang around in the endgame zones, they hang around especially in the starting zones, starting cities, because theres not just a bound to the places, a real cozyness and a kind of himy-feeling, because most of our sprouty-sprouts are there! and player made events. and live music. and, and, and.
ARR through Stormblood i think had what were called cross class skills. You could learn a ability on other jobs and bring them over. It was a way to add personal build but in the end it was scraped because Ragin Strike was the only ability that mattered.
GCD base is 2.5 seconds across the board Casters get fasters with Spell Speed and Physicals get Skill Speed. Different jobs will end up different optimal GCD windows for Rotation/Damage.
The Leveling system is a weak point IMO for FF as until CUrrent Xpac you will just be way over leveled from MSQ alone. Level Synch is the way they get around it as a problem but theres way to break lvl synch with overpowered gear as it doesnt synch down well past a point.
One point about the Mogstation purchases, SquareEnix does NOT get the money from that it goes to help fund more FFXIV, so Mogstation is really there to help bring upgrades and more content to the game. THe reason we got a new Oceania Datacenter is because Mogstation paid for it. Sub fees are really just a way to pay for the game and fund new Xpac Mogstation funds new features kinda stuff.
When I think back on what really hooked me, it wasn't some of the big name characters–it was actually Wilred. A lot of people might go, "who?"
ARR PATCH SPOILERS BELOW
Wilred's story resonated with me. He was a young man growing up in the slum of Little Ala Mhigo when a friend of his was kidnapped and gangraped by the Corpse Brigade. That moment made me realize FFXIV wasn't afraid to go to some very dark places to tell a story. Wilred and his friends were blinded by thoughts of revenge, and their blindness led them to being manipulated by an Ascian. But can you imagine easier people to manipulate? They were kids, used to being shit on by the rich of Ul'dah, having to scrap to the survive and hearing stories about a homeland taken over by the Garleans that most of them weren't even old enough to see for themselves. Then one of their friends gets violated and nobody outside of them seemed to give a fuck. How mad would that make you?
Wilred and his friends almost did a stupid thing, but luckily Gundobald and the WoL were there to stop them.
Later, Wilred decided he wanted to make himself a better man, so he joined Alphinaud's Crystal Braves. Sadly, he ended up getting murdered when he got too close to learning about Teledji Adeledji's duplicity.
Wilred was a good kid who got manipulated in a weak moment, but he wanted to be better. When he was killed, it gutted me. Maybe it was because I rolled a Highlander, too, but I think that was the first time I ever teared up in the MSQ. Other people may barely remember this kid, but I do. I've always remembered him, and I'm glad the writers did too in Stormblood.
Really glad you've loved your time in Eorzea. I hope you can make more videos on your journey, they've been a blast as a FF14 and GW2 fan.
As a player, I originally went in with basically one expectation: it gets better. I think we do this game a huge disservice when we trash ARR cause I honestly didn’t hate it. It was a good ride. Dragged in some places, but it got me where I was going. I think a big part of why I enjoyed it was that I decided not to rush and try to reach Heavensward as quickly as possible so I kinda got sucked into the narrative, got to enjoy the side content, spent way too much time at the Gold Saucer, and then when the story really started to pick up in later expansions, I was utterly blown away.
A correction on the payment – you can purchase mogstation items as a free trial player and remain on free trial. You only lose access to the free trial if you buy the game or start subscribing. Additionally, $15.00 is the standard monthly fee; you can shave off a couple dollars and pay $13.00 by using the entry subscription (also monthly) or paying for 6 months at a time. Only difference between standard and entry subscriptions are how many characters you can have on a single data center. If you need to be on a monthly sub but don't think you'll need more than 8 characters on a DC, the entry should do you just fine.
21:30 i think on a larger scale in general this right here is very profound and a thing to speculate over people have gotten so accustomed to constantly being fed dopamine that they forgot what its like to earn something there is a certain gratification in working and then getting to spend a day off to play games and as mentioned that applies to games too ppl want to get to the end game in a click if they can instead of going through the slower parts that usually maketh the game and also ffxiv is one of the worst games to rush through since its story for the most part is the bread and butter of the game if you care about a good story that is its like people have forgotten what its like to be "bored" and i do mean truly bored anyways i've binged all your ffxiv videos and i've been loving it and can't wait to see you experiencing heavensward and so on it only gets better trust
I Didn't Really Like Visual Novels But A Femboy Catgirl Got Me Addicted To This Award Winning MMO And Now My Sub Count Is Through The Roof, What The Heck Do You Mean It Gets Better?!
My favourite new light novel series.
The best advice I've ever heard relating to how people talk about FF14's global cooldown is that this game is a rhythm game disguised as an action RPG. The mechanical construction of the game's action usage is really setting a rhythm, building your muscle memory, and then gradually making that rhythm more and more complex. It's all about timing and consistency.
Should have gone to the end of the post launch patches 2.55(?)
It's funny because the story in ARR is pretty meh, and it doesn't get great until later, but I was still impressed by the game as an MMO in ARR. It's got lots of interesting features!
good vid
I had been told that ARR was going to be kind of a snooze fest, but I actually have really enjoyed it so far. This also happens to be my first MMO and it has been a super fun experience
I think what makes FF14’s story the strongest MMO story is that it does a good job of making expansions feel less like just hopping to a new zone with new raids and your character starting at a narrative square 1, but more like a genuine continuation of a Lord of the Rings like epic.
Also like Tolkien’s work it’s good at tackling tired and overused story themes in ways that don’t feel hokey or forced.
During ARR when it was fresh we got new abilities every 1 to 2 levels at first and then 1 every 3 or so. It was reduced after heavensward due to bloat. They removed a ton of abilities overall due to classes having way too many as well as every job having a dot. This caused it to be necessary for everyone to always to keep dots up for residual damage.
i believe when the new expansion comes out, shadowbringers will be added to the free trial
I am glad you are enjoying FFXIV. I tried GW2 after playing FFXIV, and I've been enjoying it as well. I think the two games are really complementary and offer different, but great experiences for players. FFXIV has great story. GW2 has enchanting environments and more customizable (?) builds. GW2 players (so far) have also proven themselves to be super nice and helpful! I will say, however, that the story of FFXIV grabbed me a lot better, so I find myself more invested in my WoL, to the point where I often pull the camera close, just to enjoy his glams and animations. It's what encourages me to log into FFXIV every day. Either way, I can't wait to see how you interact with later (and more difficult) content. Should be fun!
P.S. The whole "it's slow" rhetoric was probably true for the first iterations of 2.0. Since then, they've tightened stuff up and honestly, it's better now. I'm huge into reading, so for me, the "slow" start is a necessity.
I like how in this game you can be an big burly Warrior, a dainty Scholar, a Leatherworker who makes their own gloves, AND a fisherman who wants to catch some fish on their downtime. For MSQ I leveled at least 2 jobs at the same time because MSQ made me over-leveled really quickly and I wanted to spread out the experience. I honestly enjoyed ARR too! I went from GW2/WoW to FF14 and it felt just like playing a childhood RPG. It's sooo cozy yet strangely dark and funny. I enjoy being able to just explore the world, fishing, and just talking to optional NPCs. I loved seeing the NPC characters get slowly closer to each other in the Waking Sands. How after every few MSQ quest the NPCs would change positions and say different things. It honestly broke my heart when _ happened.
If you like lore I recommend the Post Moogle quests (it's super long so I usually just do a tiny bit of it at a time when I'm bored). Also FATE chains that drop minions are neat :D. Ohhh maybe try Palace of the Dead.
I hope you get to do Coils with your Community in ARR patch content :D!!
playing other MMO’s I’ve always been a tank or dps. When endwalker came I was intrigued by Sage healer that came out but I was so conflicted thinking “I could never heal, like what?” And here I go through all of endwalker as healer and am now a healer main looking to pick up AST or SCH as my new main going into dawntrail