I got to 80 this weekend and typically in an MMO i’d be wondering now what the endgame stuff is… With FFXIV, there is just… so… much… content. I have a laundry list of things I put off while leveling up that I now want to explore. I am pretty sure I can keep busy just finding new things until November comes around, there is that much stuff to do in this game.
I leveled up as SMN/SCH (mostly Summoner) and the bit about life begins at 50 is very true here for both of these classes. I felt like with the scholar, all the way uo to about 45 I basically had 3 buttons to push. Bio/ruin/psy… and that was it. So I shelved it. When I went back at 80 to start learning heals, I was dumbfounded. Now I have 3 resources, and good healers say all your healing is done on OGCD’s of which I had none leveling up. This is going to be a challenge and I only really wanted to do healing because I could insta queue =)
As summoner I get mega tunneled and on new content that has been an issue. I just can’t keep your head down in your rotation, keep track of casts, and lookout for the bad when you are learning new stuff. For that reason, I’ve been flipping to Red Mage to get that leveled up and holy wow, it’s like a different game. The rotation is different, the playstyle is different, and it makes more sense to me then the 2 minute summoner rotation.
So I am enjoying this a lot. The MSQ was a slog at times, and it makes it hard for me to suggest it to friends. I do wish there was some kind of “start from here” included in the next expansion, otherwise some of my MMO buddies would never make it to the expack.
This isn’t intended to excuse the quest structure, but they pretty literally were trying to pad out the playtime during the ARR MSQ (as a result of the rebuilding the game after the 1.0 fiasco). Having you run all over the place instead of just going to the final destination is an intentional delay strategy. They needed to slow people down so that they would have time to build an endgame. Now, of course, it’s just tedium and should be reworked.
Not included, but at least they offer the service. I have a friend who loves the game but I can guarantee he would have never made it past L20 doing the MSQ.
Man, I feel all of this. SCH was my main from 2.5x when I started all the way through 5.0. I still do my MSQ as SCH since I consider that to be my canon WoL but for everything else I’ve switched over to RDM. Plenty of utility and the rotation just flows so well - there’s a noticeable difference between the jobs that originally ended at 50 vs the newer ones that take the extended level range into account.
SCH lost a lot of its damage tools over the past two expansions and I hope they can fix it with Endwalker (and to their credit, they did fix it a bit post-ShB launch) with the new delineation of SCH+SGE being shields and WHM+AST being more traditional healers. For me part of the draw was that it felt similar to a DDO cleric with a bunch of offensive skills and managing all the DoTs was a great time. Now that they’ve (maybe) solved the job identity issue healers had in Shadowbringers I’m hoping that we get some more differentiation between them.
And if they don’t fix SCH I can always follow in the footsteps of a certain Scion who is also job changing :)
Are lost folk here over on Midgardian? If so I figure it’s worth it to jump over and at least then I can ruin group dungeons of people I know rather than pugs. I’m at the kobold dungeon and kind of stuck there as i haven’t played enough lately to feel good tanking with a controller.
Well, I’ve got a handle on it after playing some more, but it took a lot of wipes of an over enthusiastic paladin to get there.
The class mostly makes sense, but it’s still annoying that everything prior to 45 was mostly just irrelevant.
Sadly I don’t want to hop off of Free Trial so no Astrologian for me. I could just get my Conjuror to 15 I guess, but meh.
So much of this. Not to mention quests that are “go talk to X” you go talk to him. He sends you back to the original guy. Who sends you back to X again. What? In a real world this would be days or weeks of travel and they have magic cellphones. Wasting time is wasting time.
So apparently if you started the game on Steam you can only go to the full game by buying it Steam.
Which costs $100 to be up to date.
So. I guess I’m done with FF14 now. And now I need to try to get my money back from Square Enix.
Fucking what year is this that this is a thing?
Edit: Good news is I got a refund from SE. I suspect this is common for them at this point (despite them saying they couldn’t refund once I unlocked my code).
I was enjoying the game, but not $100 plus a sub enjoying (and then $40 in a couple months for the new expansion). And apparently Steam expansions/whatnot basically never goes on sale.
Oh well. Back to… hell if I know, this was my time killer waiting on Wrath of the Righteous.
Hrm, I’m not sure that is correct @KevinC From the Steam site:
•This package requires FINAL FANTASY® XIV Online Starter Edition (A Realm Reborn) to play the game.
• This product is only compatible with the Steam version of FINAL FANTASY® XIV: A Realm Reborn. If you’ve purchased FINAL FANTASY® XIV: A Realm Reborn on Steam, then you must also purchase FINAL FANTASY® XIV: SHADOWBRINGERS on Steam to upgrade your existing account.
You would need to buy the Complete Edition, which is 60.00. So, still more then the sale at S/E, but not $100.00
I probably misunderstood, when he said $100 to be up to date I assumed it was totaling up the expansion packs available now. It’d be $100 if you wanted Shadowbringers now and also wanted to pre-order Endwalker?
As did I. Apparently the rule is that Steam never has a sale.
As far as it being only $60. I’m still out. I was in at $23. Maybe $60ish if I’m still interested come new expansion.
I can’t fathom how this system works, but it’s stupid and bad for SE. If it hadn’t been on Steam I would’ve gotten a trial through them and then continued said trial and given them money. Instead they got literally no money from me and never will because I’m not replaying all that.
I’m not sure who really gets the blame since both Valve and SE blame the other party, but at the end of the day it’s SE’s product, so I guess I blame them.
Also you can apparently go from SE trial to Steam retail, but not the other way around. Because reasons that no one can explain.
The full game is still on sale for just $23 over at the SE site until the 18th and includes a 30 day sub. Wouldn’t buying it there be the best option? My understanding is that you can convert your free account to the full account. Or does that not work with the Steam free version? If so, pretty dumb of them. I guess you could still get it and just start a new character. That might be very painful though.
The opposite would work, but once your character gets flagged as “Steam character” you can never unflag them or get them back. But from my understanding an SE Character can become a Steam Character at any time (though once they do there is no return).
It’s very strange. Plenty of other MMOs manage to be on Steam and have a non-Steam version without these problems. For example, I own Elder Scrolls Online on Steam but have purchased most of the expansions on other sites and registered directly with Zenimax Online. It’s never been a problem.
Then again, Square Enix have been notoriously bad at this whole account/network infrastructure business since the days of FFXI.
They truly are. The biggest learning curve I had with this game is figuring out how to play the free version and get it installed in the first place. After that, figuring out how to buy the thing was another hurdle. Shouldn’t this be the simplest part of the whole process. The Mog station clearly just needs a take my money button.
