I’ve been splitting time between FFXIV, FFXII (just before the final dungeon, cleaning up sidequests/hunts), and MHW (farming mats for some other weapon types I want to try while I wait for the Celebration event so I can beat up Fat Jagras for shinies).
I’ve given FFXIV so many chances due to the amount of people I respect who praise it.
I just can’t, I hate the story, I hate the characters, Black Mage is the only class I found fun, and the combat just seems very sluggish (Being a caster sort-of mitigated that, though.)
Yeah, unfortunately FF’s early game is very rough. Lack of abilities on a long GCD makes combat slow, the story sort of meanders and you only briefly meet anyone that remains important, and you spend most of your time in exceedingly ugly gear.
The game gets a lot better as your get your level (and the storyline) into the 40s, but that’s still a decent chunk of time to invest on a chance you still might not like it, so I get folks bowing out before then.
It’s well worth it if you stick with it, I think. I don’t think I’ve played BLM. I used to be able to tank as PLD but it’s been so long, I probably look like a derp now.
It’s a slow burn. Honestly, I think it picks up once you wrap up ARRs MSQ. That’s some time, depending on how often you’re playing. It’s hella fun after that, though!
I, begrudgingly, confirm the claims about FF14’s slow burn. I’d preface by saying no one who feels off put or chooses not to play because of it is wrong in the slightest.
I painstakingly tortured myself to 50 with a group of friends at the time and, when sufficiently determined that my time was wasted and the game was awful, stopped playing for a few years. Then when I did come back, I still had nearly all of the post ARR Main Story to slog through just to get to the “good stuff”. Suffice to say, anyone who decides that waiting nearly half the game and the majority of levels capped isn’t worth their time has my understanding.
Unlike Blizzard, I can whole heartedly report that the game does pick up, albeit “eventually”. The end game isn’t as pick up and go as WoW tends to be, but that’s about it. Your class rotation will vary drastically between expansion content (for most) and the upgrades and tangible and rewarding. The story has it’s ups and downs but it’s slowest and most grueling is the base game, where the lessons therein are mostly learned and improved on in most aspects in following chapters.
I hate giving FF the praise I do because of how much of the early content is awful, but I got to the end of the suffering and the silver lining (if you can call it that) is that it actually shores up and gets better. I only ever bother because I was there too, and now I’m here where it’s a much more enjoyable product.
I would also still never badger someone to do so. Basically anyone who’s made it to endgame will 100% understand and sympathize with the new folk just trying to get invested.
I guess that’s my rant token for the week, moral of the story is have fun, your time is fleeting and precious.
It didn’t help that I started as an arcanist, with the intention of going summoner.
That was one of the most boring classes I ever played in any video game ever until I hit cap and got bahamut.
After resubbing for the third time, I just kinda accepted that it wasn’t for me.
Yeah, I have no idea how anyone played Summoner at 50, because literally every cool ability you get is HW levels and beyond.
With such a lackluster early game maybe they’ll eventually make a Realm Reborn Reborn
Early Arcanist bites. I actually just hit 30 the other day and the job tools make such a radical difference, I particularly enjoy that I get to play a healer like a dps and it shares the exp on both jobs. Honestly just getting to 30 felt like a slow poison. Between 15 and 40 on most classes is what I’d call the worst. It’s when the exp starts slowing down but you’re inbetween getting anything good and any random queues oft put you back into the 16-20 range so you lose anything you might have had.
If they could, eventually, smooth out and shape up the early experience it would be massive.
The worst thing about Arcanist is if you picked it to move on to Scholar and heal, you’re stuck as a lackluster DPS-only role until 30 when you pick up Scholar and Summoner.
Tanks are probably the easiest thing to start with in most cases, but then that leaves you being forced to tank dungeons to move through your story quest and some folks might not want to lead instance runs like that when new.
I really hope YoshiP and the devs can make an allowance of dev time to smooth out ARR a bit, and make the game more accessible at lower levels. He’s mentioned that he doesn’t really have the resources for it, but I think that was sometime last year. The game’s been doing pretty well lately so maybe Square will throw more budget his way.
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Hahahaha (They Wont)
To be entirely honest, my biggest and really only complaint with FFXIV combat is having to keep old abilities on my bars just in case I get level synced. Like on Scholar, for example, where you’re obligated to keep Ruin II on your bars just in case you get into a duty low enough where you can’t use Broil.
Not every class is like that, thankfully, but it still irks me when it happens.
well Ruin II serves a different purpose to Broil with it being instant cast and if you ever sync down to a level that doesnt have Broil you will just go back to Ruin I
I cant really explain why, but I thoroughly enjoyed the slow burn of FFXIV. Yes even the 100 quests between ARR and HW.
It’s most certainly not for everyone but damn if I didnt feel like the PC really worked towards the position they are in by SB (and now ShB).
I very much appreciated the early levels where your basically a nobody and I loved how you meet NPC adventurers along the way who point out your success as their inspiration.
And the end of ARR, my god did that build up just work for me.
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I did a low level duty as a samurai and only had access to 3 attacks and no finishers
Same. I had and am having fun every step of the way.
I totally get why someone might find it to be a bit of a slog, but all the warnings of “it’s awful, but it gets better!!” kinda fell flat when I started having fun right out of the gate.
I’m working on the “100 Quest” part and i’m having a god damn blast.
I leveled every class i could to 50.
I leveled blue mage
I have 29/49 blue spells i love this class i love the theme
I’ve almost got every crafter class to 50 and I’m just starting to play the market. There’s a Lominsan apartment in my future and I am very excited.
Oh man. I cant wait until you get to the end of that.
I have been making money hand over fist. People pay crazy amounts for stupid house crap.