Final Fantasy XIV

inb4 "Critically Acclaimed MMORPG" copypasta

Making a thread now, even though in retrospect, I probably should've made one when Endwalker started. I know there's only like, three people here play this game, but to be very honest, I'm very excited for Dawntrail, and I'm so glad I have the day off when the early access drops! Anyone else also playing the game, feel free to express your thoughts on the game, post screenshots, story spoilers are allowed, as long as they are marked as such. To those who haven't played, but are interested, definitely try the demo. It's free, it lets you play through the first three expansions (A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood), and if you enjoy it, that's great! If you don't, that's also okay!

As for me right now, I'm already set up for when the new expansion drops, I got sets of gear for the upcoming new jobs, Pictomancer and Viper, and I got my Wondrous Tails book ready to get free tomes once 7.0 launches. The fact that I have to link some of this for context...

Also, to those who are playing, what are your scores on the benchmark for the expansion? I'll start and share mine, I'm definitely going to run the game without a problem :3

 

Elden Ring Dee El Cee

I won't be playing until after I move out, because I really don't want to go through this expansion with the most dogshit internet on the planet. Also personal symbolic reasons but that's not as important.
I'm stuck in the europe server because that's where most of my friends play so don't expect to see me running around anywhere.

...I bought a fantasia right before it was announced that everyone would be getting a free one.

 

I'm stuck in the europe server because that's where most of my friends play so don't expect to see me running around anywhere.

Hey, maybe when you're finally able to, we can definitely meet in the Oceania server.

 

The gameplay sucks, the story is mid at worst and at best it's some of the best writing in the entire FF series. The music is great, environment design and stuff is great.
Plus there's a graphical update about to drop. (An incomplete one, but a graphical update nonetheless)

That said, it's a huge time sink, and if you don't have time to waste then I wouldn't recommend it. It's very grindy for the sake of wasting your time.
The sidequests are pretty endearing, and overall this is something that's more geared towards the people who want to engage with lore and exploring a very lively RPG.
But if your priority is gameplay go play PSO2 or something.

 

That said, it's a huge time sink,

Just to be clear on this; It's estimated that getting from the start to the game to what currently (while the new expansion isn't out yet) is the main story takes about at least 400 hours of your life and that's not including all the hundreds of distractions along the way or Dawntrail!!
Combat can be repetitive and difficulty for main content is build to be doable for the less skilled players, when you aren't watching cutscenes or in a dungeon most of the time doing story content is running back and forth NPCs.
Crafting is trash compared to Atelier and can feel like a horrible time investment when you're not actually making something useful.

And honestly? As someone who's been around since Stormblood it's been worth the ride.
Gameplay and story has it's highs here and there and in the end it's still an MMO so if you got people to chill with that's always good especially in a game like this where character customization sees a lot of options and everything looks decent.

 

Oh no yeah, the time sink is a huge part. If you want to just go to the new content in Dawntrail, the fastest route is definitely stick to the main scenario quests. If any of the side content look interesting to you along the way, don't be afraid to do them. The game is versatile enough where you can literally spend thousands of hours in the demo alone, the limit being not having more titles to your character, the level cap for all available jobs is Lv 70, and you'd be excluded from jobs that are available from Shadowbringers onwards, and the most glaring part about the demo is the gil limit.

You know the funny part about the game being a massive time sink, tho? It's worse if you're either into hardcore content, if you're into social events, or if you enjoy afk'ing in Limsa Lominsa. Or if you're one of them erp'ers standing around in the Quicksand over on the Balmung server.

 

Don't forget that MMOs are timesinks by design partially to encourage people staying online and down to do stuff with others.
XIV is just one if the ones that suffers from it in particular because the main story is linear and has been expanding for at least 10 years.

It's kinda like other long running media like big animes such as One Piece or games like Falcom's Legend of Heroes.
Sure, everyone's talking about the latest and newest thing and it's where the endgame and all the hype is at, as well as a noticeable difference in quality.
But honestly so long as you're the type that isn't obsessed with high end raiding over story and pace yourself you got a very beefy RPG to sink your teeth into.

For these kinds of things it's better to have the mentality of "wow this'll last me for a while!" rather than looking at it like something you HAVE to get through ASAP.
Between events being low level, the level sync system (applied to content by default) and stuff like being able to teleport to even later zone's housing districts (if you got a fc/friend with a house/room in one) it's not like being low level is that big of an issue socially anyway.

Best thing you can do is try the free trial if you're curious and see if it's something you enjoy.
Except maybe not now because there's gonna be a lot of congestion in the coming weeks.

 

Wow, that's a pretty big time sink. I think the other MMOs might be worth playing than this game that you mentioned.

I'm curious to see what other MMOs you are comparing with because MMORPGs are timesinks by design, and a lot of them incentivize you to come back every day/week (not that this one doesn't but it's at a tolerable degree).

If you don't like timesinks that's okay but MMORPGs and even large RPGs (especially the likes Xenoblade Chronicles and freemium mobile ones) may just not be your thing to begin with.

 

And even if you accept that fact and decide to try any of them (FFXIV, PSO2, WoW, Runescape, Maplestory, EVE Online, etc), be at least responsible with how much time you spend playing. Don't be like me a couple nights ago and yesterday, and spend an all nighter and play it all day. My girlfriend really needed my help to grind her Viper to Level 90, and DPS queue is a nightmare right now.

 

So yeah, Dawntrail, I'm really liking the graphics update in some parts, it caught me off guard a few times when I went in a few duty roulettes. And the most I've seen in login queue is like, 1.2k players, it's not as bad as when it was during Endwalker's launch. And omg the soundtrack for the new city, I've heard people say it doesn't suit the area at all, I just think it's a bop.

 

Pictomancer is such a busted job, I absolutely love it. I just know it's going to get a nerf when 7.1 comes, its opener is so busted for trials and raids. But damn, is it fun to try to get the attacks in just right. I'm really enjoying playing it in the meantime, probably beat Black Mage as my favorite caster job, lol.

EDIT: (8/4/2024) I don't feel bothered to make a new post in this thread rn, so I'm just gonna say that Viper is also pretty busted. It's a pretty consistent job when it comes to nonstop dps but damn is it still very high. I was actually kinda scared to play it at first because my only other Scouting job (Ninja) was at lv 44, Viper's way easier in comparison!

Oh yeah, and I'm finally using the test builds of Penumbra because fuck it.

EDIT: (8/9/2024) Moonfire Faire is up, and I managed to scale the parkour tower before my sub ends!

Spoiler: Suggestive outfit warning

 

Thanks Dawntrail, for making Oceania servers open for NA, EU, and JP players to meet up at! Now if only I can hop onto Ragnarok without doing a world transfer, tyvm. Also hi Jade.

 

I swear, one of these days I will write a detailed post about Dawntrail (and Patch 7.1), but for now, one retrospective that I've picked up more and more on is that all the bosses in Endwalker and especially in Dawntrail (dungeon, trials, and raids) are much busier compared to older content, I was doing the new alliance raid and I got scared of the mechanics, as a TANK. It can really hurt if you don't catch the mechanics on time.

...at least I had a decent first run.

Speaking of the alliance raid, I should really do some more runs on it after getting the weekly loot. It was pretty fun to play the first time, even though I panicked. >w<

Spoiler: Patch 7.1 Alliance Raid spoilers

Now, as someone who has only ever played FF1, FF6, and a little bit of FF5, I should say that you don't have to understand every single reference to the other games, even if certain content is tied to them. However, I do admit that I am tempted to try FF11 out, so I can understand the story more, even with characters explaining some of it as a means to catch up or have a grasp on how the storyline for the alliance raids will go. It's far more elaborate than the Maiden's Rhapsody collab event that happens once in a blue moon. Also have Prishe eating a taco.