So... I don't see a FFXIV thread in here anywhere, or at least not any that are recent and given how we are a week into its Second Expansion, Stormblood, I figured now's the best time! This thread is for all things FFXIV and/or SB. Personally, I've been having a lot of fun with this game. The two new classes, one of which I've played a bit, are super-fun (I know Samurai is, and Red Mage looks like it too!). The areas are breath-takingly beautiful, swimming under the water is just plain awesome, and the armors and animations (especially Samurai attacks!) are just plain top-notch. I can't think of any other MMO on the market that's anywhere near as good, to be honest. So let's hear your thoughts on it! EDIT: Here's a video to get people started. Job Actions. Like I said... animation quality is top-notch. Mo-cap, I think. Or at least it sure looks like it!
Oh right, they were adding underwater exploration with the expansion, can you by chance fight underwater?
No. But I think that is OK. I remember WoW's underwater fighting mechanics to be rather terrible, half of the time you couldn't tell where the mob was in relation to you, and other times AoE attacks were hard to see coming, or sometimes you'd get aggro from junk well off-screen, and distance calculations were all wonky. I will say, though, that Underwater Areas, or at least the first one you get to explore is simply beautiful. The swimming mechanics are very smooth and easy-going and it's rather peaceful and relaxing to just take a swim.
Hmm, you are making FF14 to look a lot more tempting all of the sudden... Guild Wars 2 has a very solid underwater combat, but I do not think there are big enough underwater areas to truly benefit from it. I have to admit, a relaxing dive sounds pretty nice as an actual option in that game... hrrm... maybe I should give it a chance... By the way I must know, how long do you think it would take to gain access to the newest content? from a new player point of view, or new character
Eh, depends on whether or not you are into real money. I would highly recommend _against_ buying the Jump Potion, though -- the Main Story Quest (MSQ) is rather well-written and full of memorable characters and experiences that will pull your emotions one way or another. Happy moments, sad moments, downright depressing moments... it's a long, long story full of stuff. It isn't all roses, there are times where you seriously wonder just how your character can continue... but they find a way. They always do. As for the amount of time... the Main Story Quest is what a large portion of the content requires, and... it's decently long. It plays a lot like a Single-Player Final Fantasy's story does, though there is one (in)famous long line of fetch quests, but they explain that in-game once you're done with it. You start out as the standard nobody and by the time you get to the Lv50 area, it is revealed exactly who and what you are, and it is awesome. There's an actual in-game, in-universe, and in-lore reason as to why you are as powerful as you are and how you can do things like "die" and get back up. And towards the end of the First Expansion (Heavensward), some of your enemies even start getting afraid of you (something you rarely see in games, especially MMOs). Of course, some people are just too dumb and think they can just brush you aside... then they find out the hard way, lol. But anywaaaays. Yes, the MSQ is long. But yet it is also awesome, and IMO full of good story-writing. OH! And the game is absolutely free-to-play until Level 35. All features/classes/jobs/content except the Marketboard, Retainers, making your own group (you can join others), guilds and Palace of the Dead Floor 11+ available that is normally available from Lv1-35. Once you get to Lv35 you can make a choice if you want to sub up or not, but once you sub... you can't go back to free. If you've played/enjoyed WoW, you should feel right at home in XIV, a lot of its systems should seem rather familiar. It isn't a WoW Clone, however, as it does do several things different but the general gameplay is similar enough that it's easy to get into. I will make a small warning, however, that some newer players find the longer GCD to be somewhat off-putting. However, late-game, you'll be glad it is that way. Early game, though... it takes a little patience when you've only a couple abilities to use. EDIT: This video shows a little more gameplay (and features another favorite track of mine):
Oh my, they actually explain the respawn mechanic? now I am curious lol, in ESO they pulled a cheap "you lost your soul, so you cannot die" piece of poppycock, fitting rubbish I suppose, but cheap nonetheless. Oh so I could actually download the game, play to 35 and then make my choice? now thats something I had not heard of before... I need to find the right moment to play it, but I think I will give it a shot this year for sure. Never played WoW myself, never heard of it until I played GW2, which is to say a different game altogether with some apparent similarities. What of abilities? you say there is only a couple at first, I had a problem with ESO in regards of how long it takes to unlock skills, it was not bad enough to consider it off-putting, but annoying enough for me to comment on it.
Yeah, they explain it in an actual logical way, in fact it is hinted at when you first begin the game, and then when you're about Lv20 or so, you learn a bit more about it. Abilities are gained at a decent pace. At Lv1, you get exactly -1- ability but you usually learn another at Lv2 or 3 (which doesn't take very long) and by the time you get to your first Dungeon at Lv16, you've got a handful of them. Some long-cooldown temporary buffs, some stuff you can actually do on a regular basis, etc. A pretty good mix. The first few levels might seem a little slow, but it gets better. Now, I'll say this for the rest of the people who have played WoW (I know you didn't, but still): The storytelling in this game is far, far better than WoW's version. In WoW, you have a huge collection of side-stories with very little connection to each other except for breadcrumb quests and it is nothing but "kill X of Y" or "get me X" or "kill this named enemy" quests. While those exist in XIV, there's an actual storyline purpose as to why you are doing it usually and it's more than "this camp needs someone to help them". Again, that exists in FFXIV, but not as often and there's an actual ulterior motive behind it. The flow between "Vanilla", to the first Expansion to the second Expansion actually makes sense in FFXIV unlike WoW, and also unlike WoW, you can (and must!) defeat all of the major important story villains to advance. In WoW, once you got Lv58, you went to Outlands and heard all of this stuff about this dark huge elf dude who is partly demon, who wields these huge blades. He's the villain, and you hear so much about him... but once you get Lv68 and you're ready to move to Northrend... you never get to fight him, because he's a Raid Boss. A Raid Boss of a Raid that nobody does anymore, because it is obsolete content. So you are likely to just skip him and go to Northrend, where you will hear about this big Lich King guy who is shoved in your face in the very first questing zone and everything is all about the Lich King and his lackeys..... but you will probably never fight him, because he too is a Raid Boss of an Obsolete Raid. So, you'll probably move onto Cataclysm areas without ever touching the Lich King where you will hear about this huge big bad dragon called Deathwing that's supposedly trying to destroy the whole world. Of course, by now you'll guess that he is a raid boss yet again that you will never fight (unless you go back and solo it once highly over-leveled and over-geared). Now, I quit WoW before Legion and I heard they added some sort of "go back and do older dungeons at max level" mechanic, but it just doesn't sound as good as FFXIV's system. FFXIV does this differently -- the Main Story Quest has you going through and completing the story in a logical, ordered manner. You can't skip parts of the story. Yes, that means you need to finish the main questline to get to new areas and do new things, but then again I think that is better than skipping ahead and finding yourself in areas you've no reason to be in. As for villains, you fight them all (except for the optional raid content, but those villains are NOT major story characters save one: Bahamut). You are required to fight them all, unless you buy the optional "Jump Potion" that let's you skip the Main Story (basically it just sets all the quests as being done). That villain you hear about in the middle of the game? You'll get to fight him. At Relevant Level, at Reasonable Difficulty. How? A beautiful genius idea that is Level Sync. Let's say you started the game today and you got yourself to Level 16. You (any player who played WoW, that is) might be worried when you are *required* to go through Sastasha Seagrot, you'll be going "oh man,I bet nobody ever does this old dungeon anymore and I'll have to beg for help..." .... no, absolutely not. If you're a tank class, you open your Duty Finder, select Sastasha, and click OK... guess what? You'll get a dungeon group in less than 30 seconds in most cases (maybe a minute or two if you're on weird hours of the day). If you're a DPS, it might take 15 or so minutes but you'll still get a group. And everybody in your group will be no higher than Level 19. How is this possible? Level Sync. Let's say you are a Lv16 brand-new adventurer ready to tackle their first dungeon, Sastasha. You enter the Duty Finder and you get grouped up with me, the Lv64 (as of writing this) White Mage, a Level 51 Red Mage and a Lv36 Ninja. Our levels will get temporarily reduced to Lv19 (most dungeons are Level +3 max, though a few are capped at their level) and our equipment is temporarily reduced to produce stats that are equivalent to a Lv19's gear. While I'm in that dungeon, I'm no more powerful than a normal Lv19 would be other than my gear is the best it can be, while some Lv19s might have slightly weaker gear but the difference isn't that big. Your Sastasha run will be of reasonable difficulty (it will be a bit smoother than if everybody was 16, but it won't be anything like 'one person can solo the whole dungeon' easy) and the group will actually need to play like an actual group doing a dungeon. This will continue all the way through the game, no matter what dungeon you need except for some of the dungeons off the beaten path (some of the optional content). The reason for this, is simple: Roulettes. A Roulette is basically a "Random Dungeon", and once per day, you get HUGE rewards for this. Once you have two dungeons unlocked, you can start doing your Leveling Roulette which basically selects 1 dungeon out of those you have unlocked, and this is how newbies get into dungeons so fast, because there's such a large pool of players doing Roulettes throughout the day, that if you specifically queue for a dungeon you need, there's a bunch of other players waiting in the Random Roulette pool and they'll help you get the content done (and they get rewards for doing so). I run my roulettes daily because it is profitable and very good for XP and tokens one can use to buy high level armor with, as well as other currency that I can use to buy various supplies. It's an awesome system that works very well. I've never done as many dungeon finder groups in WoW as I do in FFXI, because the dungeons are pleasant, they are fun, but they aren't *too* demanding (at least in most cases; there's always that fringe dungeon that not as fun as the rest lol). And earlier today, I took a pic of one of the new areas: This is, as you can see, actual in-game graphics with UI present and all. Steam slightly degrades the quality when you take a pic using Steam, so the actual in-game graphics are just slightly better than what you see here. EDIT: Also forgot to point out, that in WoW, the intro to an Expansion is always a limited-time event. If you are a late-comer, you will never see this event, and as such, you're missing out on a large part of the story and an actual reason as to why you go to that event's areas. For example, Wrath of the Lich King had a big event where there were zombies rising up everywhere, etc, so the good guys band together and get ready to storm Northrend to defeat the Lich King. Late-comers, however, will never see this and it's more "I'm going to Northrend because a breadcrumb quest said something about I gotta go there for some reason" FFXIV doesn't do this. FFXIV's Main Story Quest takes you seamlessly through the world. For example, Vanilla to Heavensward, there's actual build-up and then a boss battle before you get to the first area in Heavensward. You see all of the events, story, etc whether you were there on first day of Heavensward release, or you arrive there today. You won't miss out on any of the story.
