Final Fantasy XIV General Discussion Thread

So now that I’m trying out controller on my PC I figured I’d download this on my PS5 and try out the cross-platform support. Except I forgot that my PC account is a different square Enix account than the one that’s linked to my PSN. And unlike pretty much every other developer on the planet I can’t simply change my username, it takes an act of Congress through their tech support to change it. What a freaking hassle.

So right now my one annoyance with this game is so many of the quest lines I’m following are like, “Do all this stuff thennnnn get in line for a dungeon.” Like, I enjoy the dungeons but not alllll the time! Ugh! I’ve got four quests in my queue right now, all with the “Use the duty finder to enter such and such.” I mean I’ll do 'em but break it up a little, game.

That is a consistent issue with the game. The good part is at least there’s reasons for people to do the dungeons even if they’re not at that step in the questlines, so you can get groups for them.

I just did a big questline and it turned out to be unlocking a raid in the duty finder. Wondering if that’s a thing I can actually expect to successfully queue for, and finish…but even if it isn’t, I do kinda like that there was this whole storyline runup to unlock the raid but it was its own thing and not the culmination of an entire zone story like, say, in WoW.

Depends, which raid is it? Coils are worth doing for the story (and you’ll get a few minor dialog tweaks later if you do) though you’ll be hard pressed to find a group running them at level. However you can likely find a group in party finder that will run through and blast the fights unsynced (so they’ll be at level 80). Advertising you’re a first time player will entice some people who need the bonus currency that provides.

If it’s Crystal Tower you eventually need to complete those three raids to progress the main story as it ties back in later. 24-man content isn’t too tough and since this set is required for story you’ll be able to queue it.

I guess it’s Crystal Tower. I have no idea what the Coils are. but I don’t care about running this stuff at level, I just wanna see the dungeons/raids, personally.

Crystal Tower is a bit harder to queue unsynced so you’ll have better luck running it at level through Duty Finder. The fights are mostly trivialized though due to the way it syncs player item level vs the original tuning.

Yeah, whatever works. I just was like “I’ve had other games where you could queue for raids in the queue system but nobody does them that way so you’ll never get a group.”

That’s true, the rewards for dungeons do mitigate repeats so it’s never THAT hard to get a group together, I just prefer running around the world to dungeons, but hey, variety and all that.

The absolute worst queues I’ve ever had were trying to solo queue as a DPS for a dungeon late at night, which took twenty minutes. Typically you won’t have to wait more than five minutes as a tank or healer, and if you’re in a group with even one or two other people, it’ll often be faster than that.

As long as you aren’t doing the level 60 stuff (which is kind of unpopular and not required for anything current), 24-man content is pretty easy to queue for. Along with the reasons given above for the level 50 content, the level 70 stuff is required to unlock a special level 80 area everyone’s playing in, and the level 80 stuff is the NieR crossover content. Similarly, most trials are easy to queue for despite being 8-man content because most of them are required for the story or for the Wondrous Tails weekly rewards you unlock at level 60, and 8-man raids past the level 50 set are very popular and are required for the current endgame gear upgrades.

Well darn, I have the day off so decided to relax and play this for a bit, but wouldn’t you know - nine hour maintenance started literally 1 minute before I tried logging in. Typical! :P

PSA about current and upcoming events:

The annual Make It Rain campaign is underway. You get 50% higher rewards for all Gold Saucer activities, including the weekly Fashion Report (90k MGP per week for the duration, up from 60k. Check Reddit for the items to succeed.) and the Challenge Log (worth… ~125k? MGP a week for things like Chocobo racing and triple triad).

Why bother? In addition to several mounts, minions, hairstyles, and orchestrion rolls currently available for MGP, rumor is that the FFXV crossover is returning in September. Why should you care about that? One of the rewards is the FFXV car as a 4-seater mount (!!) for 200k MGP. Personally, I think it’s pretty ugly and not thematically appropriate, but the utility of putting a small party in one mount makes it a must-have.

If I decide to try this out using the free trial edition, can I later switch to the starter (subbed) edition and use the same account and characters?

Sure can - that would be brutal if not!

To convert your account it seems you go to the Mog Station and click the big-ass button. I suspect you will need to purchase the game too, since I am pretty sure the free version is a different install from the paid version.

Is there a good starter guide for this?

If you’ve unlocked the Gold Saucer (which I just did so it’s around level 20, from an NPC who I bet can be found in each of the 3 main cities), then you will understand what to do. It’s a big casino environment where you can play minigames to win MGP. The intro quest chain ushers you around the place and shows off the different games.

Importantly for our free trial players, they’ve re-confirmed that you can only get in when there’s no world queue (functionally different but displayed the same as the login throttling queue).

Ok. Thanks I have and done the intro quest. I will look into what games are better for rewards etc.

Also, this game is not fun for color blind people. At first it was just the circle that shows you quest areas being hard to see. I just finished Thornmarch and now I can’t see some of the AOE colors.

I think the Gold Saucer is unlocked from a quest in Ul Dah. Separately you need to unlock your Challenge Log from a quest at the Upper Deck of Limsa Lominsa. It gives rewards (gil and XP) for things like running 5 dungeons in a week (which ends Tuesday for some reason). Once you have access to the Gold Saucer, it also includes a new category of challenges that gives a ton of MGP for completing activities.

Last I looked, you get far more MGP from the Challenge Log than the activities themselves. Rewards range from trivial (1k for winning 3 mini games) to significant (20k for winning 10 Chocobo races). It adds up to a lot.

You can adjust colors if you’re on not-console (the interface is probably changed by now since TP is no longer a thing…):

And an infographic on farming MGP:

https://imgur.com/G7LNSxG