There’s also chocobo racing (and breeding) and a lightweight RTS with the collectible cosmetic minions as units.
As I told someone, some people subscribe to FF XIV just for its Mahjong implementation. There are tournaments, etc. I haven’t dabbled in that yet, but I might eventually.
@rhamorim Mahjong Online! Amazing. I had thought of the game as a Chinese or Hong Kong thing, but it’s apparently the most popular table game in Japan. So maybe not a surprise that it’s so well-implemented in FF14. I wasn’t the only one in the room playing.
Female casino workers wear bunny costumes in the Golden Saucer. Not that revealing but still a bit of a surprise, though again I guess that’s maybe a cultural thing. I didn’t mind, but I doubt we’ll see that in WoW anytime soon.
The cut scenes are getting more interesting. I’d like to see my character say more. I liked that SWTOR even voiced our character. That’s asking a lot, I know. I’d settle for more than just nods, heh. But no complaints. The single-player feel of the MSQ is wonderful.
@malkav11 A lightweight RTS! I’m in.
The last couple of expansions have added more dialog responses for your character, although you’re never voiced. The other characters will also start to comment on how you never do muchbmore than shrug, too, so there’s a bit of a wink to the player that a silent protagonist is odd.
Well, if you have any interest in making Endwalker relic weapons you’d better make sure you’re up to date on the 40+ part Hildebrand quest chain that starts in Uldah at level 50 (first quest: The Rise and Fall of Gentlemen), because the relic is now part of that questline.
You have until probably September to figure that out, and if you haven’t done them yet I find a little bit of Hildy goes a long way but ymmv. Best not to wait until the last minute and end up having to marathon it.
Why only until September? Is something getting removed?
Sorry, no, that’s around when those new quests will be added. I meant if you wanted to be ready when they come out.
This is all I play anymore outside of Call of Duty. It’s just so goddamn good. I’m beelining the main story quest and am in Stormblood 2-1 according to the PlayStation right now. I absolutely loved Heavensward and while this one took a little to get going it’s been awesome again for awhile now.
It’s so obvious this is where the PS3 support was dropped. Everything is bigger, better, and slicker. The dungeons went up a few notches too. It’s crazy that there’s 13 years of this damn game and it apparently stays this amazing all the way to the present day.
I’ve spent a lot of time at the Triple Triad tables and a fair amount in Mahjong as well. It’s just stupidly packed with stuff to do. The new Leap of Faith they added recently is a bitch to complete too. Long live the Manderville Golden Saucer!
Heavensward is my second favorite expansion, only behind Shadowbringers (and HW has better pacing compared to ShB). And Ishgard is in many ways one of my favorite places and home to some of my favorite jobs (DRK, MCH).
Stormblood has severe pacing issues and it tries to tackle a lot of things at the same time (and ends up dropping some of those as a result), but it’s definitely enjoyable, and there are some great moments too.
And yeah, I play FF XIV more than anything these days. There’s just so much to do and so many ways to play that it fits my needs more often than not. It’s fantastic.
I have started playing this for teh first time propely, I don’t have the last expansion but the rest. It seems a really great game, has laod sof contents and accessibility is great. Lots of portals and a storyline etc but heck is the Realm Reborn mission a postal mission.Go here, come back, go there again, go here, come back and so on. I am level 43 now and getting towards the end of the first storyline with the airship but boy was that a drag. Get these ingredients here there and everywhere ignoring teh fact the end is nigh.
IU have read it gets a lot better with the expansions and it better because I don’t think I can cope with another 50 levels of fetch and delivery quests.
I am playing a Puglilist / Monk and it’s ok but I read i can just swap jobs so will think about changiong at some point. Any suggestions for a fun job. I will mostly play solo.
Eh, I quit a while ago, but here’s my 2 cents.
My favorites across the categories were the Gunbreaker, Sage, Summoner, Dancer and Reaper
The Gunbreaker is a tank class that almost plays like a DPS. You get the short queues and survivability of a tank, plenty of buttons to push and a killer aesthetic featuring the silliest melee weapon to ever be devised.
Sage was the only healer that clicked with me, aesthetically and mechanically. You have a hot on the tank, a lot of OCD skills to heal up raidwides and the occasional blooper, and some decently flashy damage skills. Along with some “stop dying already!”-buttons for the tank. Sadly, no matter what healer I tried, I tended to get piss-poor tanks who though mitigation was some kind of fried eastern street food.
Black Mages are involved and do massive damage. Red mages are flashy with a killer aesthetic. Summoners can be played half-asleep with nearly the same DPS as the red mage and a killer aesthetic to boot. Not my proudest pick, but a safe bet if DPS was needed and I was unfamilar with the content. (I usually ended up tanking, anways…)
Dancer was the least annoying picks in the ranged DPS department. Mechanist is something for people with better reflexes, more fingers and/or better latency than I had. Bard was dull as dishwater.
Dancer allowed me to wear the ranged DPS gear (like, say, Amon’s suit) while still having fun and engaging gameplay.
Melee DPS, my choice was reaper. Killer aesthetic, big hits, comparatively low APM, and you got that nifty teleport move that actually worked (as opposed to the dragoon’s jumps, which had too much cooldown and tended to move you to all the wrong places). Ninja is also fun, but was incredibly busy, not to mention their gear was unique to them, which meant no recycling.
Monk was okay, after the rework, but the visuals were pretty sub-par, coming from reaper and ninja first.
Since all story dungeons can now be done solo with the AI, you can pick whatever you like, but I did enjoy running those with the guild. Faster and usually some competent players around.
A Realm Reborn is definitely the weakest of the MSQ content but it’s not that bad. They apparently streamlined it a lot and I’m sure that had the effect of leaving in a lot more fetch stuff because that’s partially how they introduce so many new areas or parts of older areas.
That said, it’s totally worth it. When you get to the end, the payoff is awesome, and then it really does go apeshit after that.
This game has some of the most memorable characters and quests and highs and lows in its story of any game I have ever played and I’m only now done with everything up through the main part of Stormblood. I’m in that patch content atm.
Keep in mind also, the part you’re playing is ten years old. Both game design and technology improve in step with the game’s expansions. I’m basically in 2017-2018. Lol!
Oh boy, I can’t wait to see what you think of Shadowbringers. There are some superhigh highs in that one. I hope you enjoy it!
“Fun” is extremely subjective. My favorite jobs right now (one of each “role”, so to speak) are Dark Knight (Tank), Scholar (Healer), Machinist (Ranged DPS), Reaper (Melee DPS) and Black Mage (Magical DPS). You’ll have to try the jobs for a bit to figure out which one you prefer.
The classes have a complexity limit that’s tuned around the top level. This means your experience with a class, especially below level 60, will likely be very different from how it feels in those final tiers. The designers removed and simplified earlier abilities, to achieve desired play styles for classes and to prevent an unmanageable explosion in complexity by only adding more.
It’s still hard to say how much you should balance your choice solely around the higher levels, because there are many hours of Main Story Quest you must complete to get there. I just don’t think any class is particularly engaging below level 50. Something I think would have been better for me would have been to buy the story skip/level up pass. That way I could have jumped to the intermediate levels and build, joined all of the dungeons and trials, and then filled in whatever MSQ story chunks I wanted more details about later (through the “New Game+” system, IIRC). Playing dungeons/trials/raids with 3 or 7 friends was the only draw through A Realm Reborn, and the MSQ through those 50 levels nearly killed the game for me.
While that’s true, some jobs change more than others. I mean, Bard is pretty much the same from 50 forward. But Black Mage changes a LOT every 10 levels. So it varies.
And yeah, leveling new jobs doesn’t require going through the MSQ again, but it does require repeating dungeons, and that can wear thin if you do it too much. Still fun though, if you can pace it.
I know you’re aware, but there are other options for leveling besides dungeons (although they’re not as efficient). Tribal quests, Deepest Dungeon, and PVP all work pretty well for casually leveling a job while doing something different, although I wouldn’t rely on them for power leveling.
I find that the MSQ gives enough XP to keep two jobs at quest level. With everything gated behind the MSQ, there’s no reason to be higher level than the MSQ quests.
Was gonna resub to this, but that download speed…lol. It doesn’t take much to dissuade me from anything these days, this was enough.
The AI dungeon stuff sounds fun, maybe I’ll leave it running overnight at some point, but this problem has existed forever in this game, can’t believe it’s still a thing.
Just completed the final battle in Realm Reborn, all dungeons done with AI and all with no problem and pretty decent.
I shall probably pick something different to normal. I really enjoyed a wizard in Diablo 3 and don’t do wizards in any games so may try a mage next
Man, I envy you playing Heavensward for the first time.
One thing about this game is even if you queue with random people for dungeons, they’re usually very patient. Everyone wants you to see those cutscenes, and dude, there are cutscenes…