7 months ago, I took a chance on FFXIV. Turns out it changed my life.
I’ve started my first playthrough of Final Fantasy XIV over on Twitch. I hope some of you will join me on this adventure!
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0:00 Thoughts on MSQ so far [SPOILERS]
11:30 Managing Expectations
14:25 Everything I love (and hate) about FFXIV
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Yo guys, I know the channel isn't yet up to speed but I wanted to post this one off the cuff to share my thoughts after 100+ play sessions.
Once agian, this video is as much for me to look back on as it is for you guys!
I hope you enjoy my blabbering. See you in the comments and the streams ❤
As someone who has recently been playing through the game again, i remember hating arr but on my replay ive enjoyed it more than i enjoyed stormbloodblood(still love it) but it shocked me how much i enjoyed it
🙂
This is not an aloo message or maybe it is who knows
Streamer owes me 5 dollars for my nice message on stream
Endwalker 2026 let's go
Legit the final fight of the base game was anticlimatic… but the ending of the patch was not imo.
The thing with ARR is not that its 'bad' but in comparison to all the expansions that come after, some people can miscontrue it as bad,
And, for how important ARR is for the story, as a new player you dont have context, and they just vomit a ton of exposition on you, without you being engaged in the world yet, so it can be offputting to some ppl
Also, the MSQ required duties are never going to be too hard, but as other ppl say, i would greatly suggest doing Thordan Extreme
The min ilvl no echo point won't really be prescient unless you pursue EX/Savage/Ultimate difficulty content. Then entirety of the base content is a pushover no matter what, and was addressed at PAX East
I came from 7 years of ESO. I started trial with AuRa man/Dragoon and ADD, so I kind of tried a bunch of stuff, crafted, fishing, etc. ESO story isn't front and center and actually isn't really required to enjoy the game. So when I finally realized I left the MSQ story sit, I finished all the way to Shadowbringers and waited for Endwalker to drop.
I saw the male Viera and instantly bought and subscribed. I made a bunny boy ninja and ran through the game (to date) in one big gulp. It made more sense since I wasn't trying to remember who and what as much. ARR became where I really looked at the Scions since I knew where they would go and do. I felt more a part of the team Heavensward on and felt more of the emotions.
I can't imagine trying to do this all with people watching and interacting. Glad you are having fun.
One thing I wish I thought of when I started was leveling similar jobs together so I didn't have to hold onto or repurchase a ton of gear. Running Dancer, Machinist and Bard, swapping between to level was a blast and made it less grindy.
People get a bunch of different mileage out of ARR, especially since a lot of the older players still have flashbacks to trying to get people into the game and them just bouncing off of the Titan arc. Heavensward gets a lot of accolades, but it too had a lot of fat trimming in the patch content because HO BUDDY. People who complained about Endwalker's patch cycle have no idea just what HW's cycle was like. High highs (Deep Dungeon, a staple of alt leveling to this day) and low lows (Grand Company squadrons and some guild-bustingly hard extreme raid content) and looooong filler quests of just running messages for half an hour. It's still pretty good – no Battle for Azeroth level storytelling here – but this is still far from the top of the mountain.
I hate alphinaud
I've played WoW forever and still do. I stopped during shadowlands along with everyone else and played FF14. I loved it. The classes feel great, the story was amazing, and your character IS a protagonist. In WoW you are "hero" but one of millions. In FF14 you are the warrior of light, a scion, and the driving force of the story. You know there are others, but you make your choice (despite it not being impactful) and it felt good. In WoW, the main characters talk at you, but FF the main characters have to talk WITH you. The vibe of players in FF is far better than most players bases.
WoW does a few things I like, multi spec classes, choices in style of gameplay, and personally I like m+. The combat feels way better in WoW.
I love them both so much and they have what the other misses
Heavensward and arr was cool. Arr sucked because it was so slow no because it wasnt good. Like hw at some point you're GONNA get tired of ishgard.
If you don‘t like tab targeting with mouse and keyboard, perhaps try playing with a controller for a while. You might find a new appreciation. 🙂
Good video mate
Dont feel bad about HW opinion because I have similar thoughts as well until 3.3 which I loved but even then it is not an equal to ShB story like many want to believe.
Maan wait till stormbood. Ppl are also indifferent about that expac, but that story has some good gems
I’m also a 20 year wow vet that switched and I absolutely loved a realm reborn and I’m doing the game the same way you are doing it. msq then blues and raids and I’m also at the end of heavensward and I’ve been absolutely loving everything
HE DOESNT KNOW, EL NO SABE..,
KEKW XFFINGF
GONNA BE FUNNY ONCE YOU KNOW WHAT WE KNOW AYAYA
pepeW
I look forward to your enjoyment of Stormblood since most people dunk on it haha. I liked it just fine, it just has a lot to set up to start with. The Aetherochemical boss fight was actually reworked to be even HARDER pretty recently. I joined in 6.0 when things were first redone and the Aetherochemical fight was updated after I'd cleared it in MSQ. So, rest assured it's got even more of a difficulty gap between that and Thordan than the original. Glad you're enjoying the journey so far!
Oh my goodness, you have such an amazing adventure ahead of you =) I'm also currently replaying ARR on an alt, doing the entire thing over again =) There is stuff I wish I could do for the first time again, and I know all the people who have played it would be excited for you that you get to live it all for the first time =) Have fun! =)
I left WoW after 19 years to play FF14, best decision of my life in mmo-gaming.
Alooo! As always really enjoyed your thoughts and progress on FFXIV. Thanks for sharing and looking forward to more of your progress and journey in FFXIV!
It's not that ARR is 'bad' it's just lacking in comparison to the expansions. It's like the 2007 Hulk compared to Avengers Infinity Wars. (ARR vs EW) Been playing since 1.0 and played XI for over a decade before.
The community has a habit of completely over hyping expansions and the story telling, its part of what made Endwalker and heavensward not as enjoyable for me
There should be some things you can try to improve the tab targeting by shifting a few settings. Maybe you've tried already but if you haven't there are some guides that go through some ways you can tweak it.
You can't expect a MSQ trial to be overly challenging; all players need to be able to clear it; not just the raiders.
I believe you'll be much happier when you get to the extreme version of Thordan, especially if you do it blind and min I-level.
I'm gonna be that rare voice.
If you didn't enjoy the fight mechanics in heavensward. It's not going to be better forward. Mostly because of this word called experimentation. Stormblood experimented with it's fight mechanics way more than other expansions. And there is experiments in mechanics in other expansions. Stormblood just had the most of it. Unique fight identity is there ……. But then you start shadowbringers. A great expansion in many things, but balance and unique identity. I really don't know how else to say this. But fights really begin to feel the same. This especially becomes a problem when you play in long periods of time. Once you get through shadowbringers, endwalker fights feel like you have seen them all. And its. . . Really boring. Like I'm still gonna play. I play boring games to turn my brain off or to just kill time and relax. Boring games are more needed than people think. But ff14 boring flavor is particularly weird to me at least. Because it's a boring lull. A type of lull that can make you pass out . . . That's because I have passed out before in dungeons (with friends thankfully. Thank the twelve they woke me up.) but you will feel it. But it becomes apparent when trial fights are not a test of skill or mechanical understanding. It's a test of memory, and puzzle solving. Once you know the answers you just need to remember them, and you clear every fight in the game. I'm gonna be honest. Ff14 is not a skill based game from its design. It's not designed with skill in mind and the two minute meta is actually my proof positive to this claim. Waiting for everyone's buffs to align is not a skill test. It's a patience test. And I just don't think I can be convinced otherwise. Because when you actually look at a skill based game like Dark Souls. You can feel your skills you have learned in the game being tested. And I do like memory and puzzle test. They are fun and enjoyable. And I do have fun with that in mind. I love the final trial in stormblood. It's my favorite trial in the whole game, and the extreme one is just as fun. But it's very much a memory fight and rewards you for remembering mechanics because what skill is there in just. "See aoe. Stand in right spot." Which is 90 percent of all trial fights. Savages and extremes included. It just will eventually get A: boring if you don't pace yourself, and B: won't feel like the challenge people think it is. Not saying it can't be intense. If you are on a timer anything can feel intense. But the things being tested are not what people think are being tested. Or at least in my observations. I played to the final update of endwalker. But I think I'm holding out on Dawntrail despite the two new classes being classes I would love to play. I have my reasons a well as beyond waning interest. I'm only currently playing because I had a friend pay two more months of the game. In YoshiP's words. I'm prioritizing my time and money. Bills are hard to pay in the USA. Which. Mad respect for the guy. I'm glad he holds this stance for his game. But with my experience of this game, I want less of the same thing over and over again. And Dawntrail will be exactly how I think it is. So even with classes I would love to play in it. Unless someone buys it for me. I'm passing on Dawntrail. I need a vacation anyways.
Ps: If anyone thinks or wants to say spaghetti code. I have been playing since stormblood. If they just made a small dedicated team to work on it in the background. It would have been solved by now. I have been saying that since stormblood. Spaghetti code is not an excuse to me. Especially since test and development servers are a thing. Which means it won't affect normal people. This should spaghetti code point should be none existent by now. I don't want to read it. It's not an excuse that works anymore.
Huh the sequence of events that led to the end of ARR was pretty hype.
A duty -> 2 dungeons -> a 2 phase trial and finally another duty. A lot of momentum there.
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New expansions nowadays is just a dungeon then a trial, that's it. Well except for you know what…
Who else wants a chocolate fudge ?
someone else that enjoyed ARR!
Re: Enjoying A Realm Reborn over Heavensward, this was a pretty common opinion back in the day. I remember getting hyped for Heavensward but being relatively disappointed for a long period of time. The general sentiment with a lot of friends and myself is that we missed our normal cast of characters, the dungeons felt less inspired (felt like every dungeon was just hallways to a boss), and the zones were both annoyingly difficult and too large. I didn't think about it much because it picked up and became enjoyable throughout the expansion but looking back on it with the first WoW Exodus, it felt funny hearing the idea of "it gets good in Heavensward"
I do really miss the remixed dungeons that ARR did, though.