Now that I’ve found my feet with FFXIV’s…eccentricities (The loading screens bother me, especially in the Scions base) I’m having fun.
That said, I could wish the Main Quest was less Dungeon focused. Got to a point where I was like “This is going to end in a dungeon.” and sure enough. But hey, I’m a introvert and loner to begin with and FFXIV is supposed to be a MMO, so it’s a hang up on my end.
If its any consolation, and without spoilers, introverted tendencies and desires become somewhat less of an issue whenever you hit Shadowbringers with Trusts. They decided to make life easier for those who are more introverted/prefer doing solo content.
Plus it does something I wish other MMOs would do, allows me to try my hand at roles in a level appropriate dungeon without having to worry about dragging the rest of the group down. I’m a DPSer at heart but I do enjoy tanking as well, I’m just super nervous whenever it comes to actually doing it in a group. And healing downright terrifies me, don’t judge lol.
The best way to learn is always going to be jumping in and just doing it of course, and like others have said, tanking in 14 is a bit of a different beast than WoW. Plus being an MMO you don’t want a system like that that completely replaces group content. But the Trust system is a nice way for me to try different roles at a more relaxed pace.
There’s a function called ‘squadrons’ that allows you to run dungeons with NPCs, but they’re kinda weak. Lvl 70 and beyond you can use NPCs through the ‘trust’ system, which is like squadron but the AI isn’t braindead.
https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Adventurer_SquadronsI myself have not started rping in the game yet (Still trying to catch up on the story, and I am loving it). Personally I very much prefer the feeling of XIV’s combat to wow. The global cooldown can be bad in the beginning but by the time you have most of your abilities there is usually very little down time. It also stops the instinctual urge to smash on the key so I can get it out as fast as possible, since I know it’ll take a second anyway.
The only two jobs I have high level are Samurai and Red Mage, and by god are both a blast to play.
squadrons are pretty weak BUT once you unlock command missions to run dungeons with them if you do 10 of them (non-unique, spam halatali all you want) you get a set of workout emotes
/squat over your friends
specifically: /squats, /situps, /pushups, /deepbreathing
and yeah if you’ve seen NPCs doing squats around the place that’s exactly what you’ll be doing with /squats
I’m a big fan of push ups in the labyrinth of the ancients lava
I see a lot of players clearly roleplaying on Balmung but in my chatbox I can only see their emotes, not what theyre saying.
Is it maybe customary to carry out most conversations in some chat other than /say? I guess that would help cut down on chatter in crowded areas?
Oh, and my character was visiting the world and didn’t have /roleplay toggled (I wanted to scope things out before getting in the pool haha), so maybe that was why I couldn’t see their chatter?
Its probable some people used /party or a linkshell instead of /say, but its also probably that most players were just putting their dialogue in their emotes as well.
That doesn’t change what you see, only just makes your character flagged for RP to be visible by other players.
/say and /emote are usually what RP’s done in informally, some people use /yell to do limited zone-wide stuff when they’re running events, and /shout is pretty much trade chat. Then /party can be used if things are a bit crowded (or spicy). Linkshells are used a bit, too.
Only two things I can think of is that you caught Balmung at a time where people were just primarily conversing via dialogue in /emote, or you somehow disabled /say in your chatlogs.
I’ve been grinding PvP so I could get an armor glamour for my ninja set, and honestly? Pretty content with how PvP is so far. I remember when it was like pulling teeth, but now I feel more or less capable of playing the game without wanting to rip my hair out for doing one frontline. Tanks are beefy as hell but probably aren’t soloing anyone, healers are annoying but aren’t gods, and DPS hurt like hell but they also take a beating to the face really easily.
It’s far from perfect, but it’s definitely miles ahead of what it used to be lol…
PvP is still second fiddle in the grand scheme of things, though. It’s always wild to play a game where importance of PvP play ranks behind even RP/cosmetic stuff.
Is it the genji looking cyber suit? I bet it’s the genji looking cyber suit
Yes. Though its reddish color and has the neon blue light coming from the mask instead of the green light, which I like a LOT since it matches the Scaevan Magitek weapon’s light color.
Here’s my hroth wearing it:
https://i.imgur.com/wujjd60.jpg
Unfortunately I hate to say, I am not feeling FFXIV. I am unsure yet if it’s simply because I’m not feeling it or because it’s overwhelming, which sometimes drives me away.
I’m going to give it a solid go, but it’s just not my vibe so far.
Honestly, it’s a lot to take in and I don’t expect a lot of people to get into it. There’s a lot to do, and it overwhelmed me at first. Eventually, I caught up on most of the earlier stuff and am now cruising through the game at the end game.
But I’m not even remotely close to finishing all I could in this game. I only have half of my PvE classes maxed, and a lot of my professions are under level 70.
I feel like you should continue to give it a try, but if you don’t feel like it’s your cup of tea then put it down. The best part about FF14? You can literally unsub and come back to it whenever you want and it’s seriously not a big deal. You’re not “going to be behind” because you stopped playing. The game was designed for people to unsub! Even Yoshi P said as much.
There’s literally only two reasons you’re staying subbed despite not playing:
So don’t feel bad if you don’t wanna play anymore. Put it down, play other stuff, and if you’re feeling up to it again give it another shot. I will say, though, that (much like everyone else confirmed), the game becomes a lot less overwhelming once you get past ARR content.
Anecdote; I started sometime into the early ARR era. I had a couple lads drag me in and we made up our own group so we could clear the dungeons without randoms.
At first I was doing alright, not sold on anything particular but overall at least being entertained by my massive meaty roegadyn thaumaturge.
But between the lot of us, we needed a tank, and since no one else would bother I picked up Marauder since I could do that on one character.
My experience plummeted. The TP cost to maintain AoE threat was absurd, the GCD was abysmal, the aesthetic and animations were on point but I didn’t have a single mitigation tool for 50 levels. Maybe closer to 40, I don’t recall, either way. The group content was spread so thin and I didn’t care for the story that interrupted my gameplay every couple minutes because I was just struggling to find a level or skill where my gameplay would improve. Spoilers; it never came.
Anyways I played with them to 50, we beat the base story experience up to the big 8 man dungeon, and entered into the endgame proper. And I tossed the whole thing into the trash and didn’t come back for years. Literal years.
Friends tried to coax me back with the announcement of Heavensward and the scaly race and focus on dragons on the narrative but I felt like the bridge had already burned. People explained all the cool new features and I shrugged everything off because I had already given up on the product.
And then when Stormblood was set to release, yet again some friends (different ones by now) were all gung ho to get together and get in on the cool new experience and they wore me down. Someone offered to cover me for a fantasia (full race/customization redo) and told me I could start with my existing character and pick up SAM without skipping a beat. So I did.
I don’t know how or what really changed, but the freedom to sort of approach the game back at my own speed and on my own terms gave me the room to breathe I needed. I gradually regained interest in the narrative despite how slow it came across and grindy the road to 70 was. SAM was significantly more fluid and fulfilled the sort of deliberate rotation I was looking for, and aesthetically much more in line with what I had been craving, apparently. Weebs represent.
And even despite becoming substantially more invested by the time I reached the new endgame at 70, I still ended up unsubbing until the Shadowbringers announcements. And when I came back, I picked up like I’d left nothing behind and easily stepped right back into the story and my class and the end game grind.
I don’t know if this is the kind of story anyone needs to hear, I just felt like giving this one out. MMO’s are designed in such a way that it can feel like any time youre not playing is wasted, and people emphatically argue about which one is better or why the one they don’t like is bad. (Especially me). If there is any one point I could emphasize about FFXIV, it’s that you never know how or when it may, or may not, work for you.
Change classes, change race, get a new glam, pick up crafters, try some minigames, join a guild, leave a guild. Take a break. By god above all though, don’t suffer as I did and try to make yourself tough through it just because people implied you should, or because you feel obligated to. Chip at it, put it down, come back, or don’t. Just don’t let anyone bully you for not feeling it.
the entire alliance is taking sips of the LotA lava
nature is healing
Wait you guys are heading to level cap?
…I just leveled to 20ish to unlock dyes and transmog then joined an RP guild, and I’ve been roleplaying in the guild housing ever since.
I play on Sarg but when we can travel to other data centers I will try to join y’all.
Holy hell I might start doing pvp.
No worries chief, this is exactly how it happened to me too. I actually tried getting into XIV towards the end of Heavensward or beginning of Stormblood, I just got so overwhelmed that I ended up quitting until Shadowbringers came out. I was lucky enough to have a fc take me in immediately and show me all the stuff I’d need to know and even help me with content, but the beginning bit is a very overwhelming thing to get through.