How is Final Fantasy XIV (14) on PS4

I am thinking of giving this a try, and continuing my Quixotic quest to not game on on-console devices. I am thinking of trying FFXIV on PS4. I am curious to people’s experiences between console and PC versions.

Apologies if you’re familiar with the game on PC and I’m repeating things you already know :)

The PS4 version is just fine - the game was designed with controllers in mind and it works great with one. I personally play with a controller on both PC and PS4. I assume you’ll start with the free trial where performance won’t be an issue, but if you stick with it the new expansion areas are a bit sluggish on PS4, less so on Pro. Loading times are a bit worse than PC, understandably. If you want to join a free company (guild) or just generally be social, a keyboard helps a ton. You can get by with the virtual keyboard and in-game auto phrases, but dropping $20 on something like a Logitech K400 is a huge QoL upgrade.

If you have any interest in Vita remote play it’s… passable. I wouldn’t recommend it for any group content because of the control scheme, but I use it for crafting and gathering with no issue.

Cross-platform: Everyone plays on the same servers. One sub fee, but you need a license for each platform (PC, PC Steam, Mac, and PS4 are all separate platforms; PC and PC Steam are incompatible with each other). On PS4, a PSN account can only be tied to one SquareEnix service account. There’s no good reason to have multiple, but make sure you don’t tie your PSN to a dead beta account or something.

The biggest downside of playing on multiple platforms is that your keybinds, saved gear sets (for switching classes) and macros are stored client side. They’re working on an option to backup your settings to server, but it currently doesn’t allow you to restore to a different platform. It’s only really a problem if you do a long stretch of leveling on one platform and then have a bunch of skills to assign once you switch over. If you’re only playing on PS4 there’s no worry.

tl;dr: Plays great on PS4, Original PS4 starts to show its age in Stormblood areas, playing on multiple platforms could be a little smoother.

So, if I want to jump between Mac and PC, I need to buy a separate version of the game for both?

Yes, either the complete edition or Starter Edition plus Stormblood for access to everything. On the plus side, each license for the base game comes with a free 30 days of sub time.

ugh, ok. I’ve gotten used to one license for multiple platforms. Thanks.

Also, I don’t know anything about the game. It gets mentioned a lot on the official WoW forums and I am going to check it out.

Ah, that seems to be a common theme lately from the FFXIV newcomers. I’m not familiar with WoW, but have been told this is a pretty good overview for people looking to dip their toes in: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/wowrefugee. Overall, the subreddit is better for finding information than the official forums in my experience.

I’d recommend starting with the trial - it’s free to level 35 for as many classes as you’d like, no time restriction. It is however restricted to one platform.

Will also say, if crafting or gathering is your thing at all 14 has a very robust system. And if it isn’t your thing, you can happily ignore it.

Thanks. That is very helpful.

I don’t actually have much of a problem with WoW, but the near-constant negativity on the forums and the game is getting to me. It’s about time to try something new.

But, I can create multiple accounts for the trial if I want to compare them, right?

Yes, absolutely. If you do that, make sure the one on PS4 is the one you’d like to stick with if the game catches you. There are a few stumbling blocks when getting started, and account creation/management is one of them… Square’s account system is dated and I’d hate for something like that to dissuade you.

I know it sounds like I’m being critical, but I do really love the game. Being able to play every class on a single character is a huge plus in my book, and I do think storywise it’s earned its placed as numbered Final Fantasy entry. It’s nice knowing that there’s a strict cadence to content releases, and every couple of months a major content patch with new dungeons, a new trial (major boss fight), and new 24-man raid or 8-man raid tier will be releasing. It’s also a great time to get into the game; the new expansion is coming out this summer so there’s plenty of time to catch up and then hit the ground running with Shadowbringers.

That is a fair comment. I remember some hassles with FF when I did the xbox review a while ago.

I installed it on my Mac today. I will probably install on the PC when I get home. After I see if the game sticks, I will try it on PS4.

I started with the Windows client, back at the beginning, and transitioned to the Mac client more-or-less full time when I upgraded to a modern iMac last year. The Mac client is a Cider port, but it runs reasonably well, provided that you have decent hardware underneath it. For reference, my iMac is a 4.2 GHz quad-core i7, with 24GB of RAM and the Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB of video RAM.

FFXIV has a very customizable control scheme for controller use. I’ve been playing it too long with mouse and keyboard to seriously want to retrain my muscle memory to use it, but it’s a lot better than the controller support on FFXI (which I did use full time for ten years.) But you can mouse and keyboard on the PS4, too, if you want to. :)

I have a MacBook Pro 15, 2016 and an Alienware Alpha r1. I am starting to think of moving a lot of my games off the Mac to the Alienware. Games like WoW, that take advantage of Metal, will run better. I’m not sure how much better the Mac will run games that are Cider Ports, especially now that Apple is deprecating Open GL.

I will give it a go on at least the Mac and PC. If the general game sticks. then I will think about if I want the PS4 version.

I downloaded it and played it for a bit last night. Still too early to make any real judgments, but having to click through each quest dialog piece is annoying.

That said, I’m not pissed off at WoW enough to cancel my sub yet, and I’m not sure about adding a second sub to my monthly take. I may just go back to GW2 as my second MMO. However, the 35 levels is good enough for me to sort out the game over the next couple of months.

There is the option to autoscroll through dialogue, at a configurable speed. On my Xbox controller, it’s turned on by holding down the “Y” button. …that’s probably the Jump button if my muscle memory is right.

Ah, ok. I couldn’t find a setting in my Mac.

Should be Spacebar, unless you rebound the Jump key. It’s probably a 2-3 sec hold to get it to activate, but it locks on until/unless you turn it off again. (I’ve only ever turned it off one or twice for real world interruptions.)

FFXIV has added a lot of QOL features over the years, so there’s a good chance that anything that’s annoying you can be changed. Unfortunately, the new features aren’t always obvious or called out by tutorials so it may take some googling to find them.

I’ve been playing this game pretty much non-stop since December, after bouncing off it hard the first couple times I tried.

I will say this: the game is frontloaded with a whole bunch of mundane crap you have to wade through. I found the story to initially really drag on with not a lot happening. Classes/Jobs are very very basic for quite some time, which combined with the 2.5s GCD made the combat feel very slow, boring, and uninteresting to me.

But if you have the fortitude to push through that, the payoff is totally worth it. The story becomes much more engaging if that’s your thing, and they build classes/jobs by adding layer on top of layer. The first while felt like I was just standing there dribbling a basketball, but by the time I hit max level I felt like I was juggling multiple balls while frantically trying to dodge attacks.

I love the game now, which is why I’ve been playing pretty much nothing else for a couple months. But man, I feel like they did everything they could to bore the crap out of me initially.

EDIT: To give an example, I played an Arcanist which was pretty much “Cast DOT, then nuke until DOT wears off” and repeat. This is what the “rotation” looks like for me now (click to see the full image, it’s cropped in Discourse):

I have a mostly unsupported theory that 5.0 will include some significant changes to early content. (Trailer talks about changing the past, they’re adding New Game +, and they must realize the attrition rate of new players in the early game.) I certainly hope so, because you’re exactly right. I love the game from ~2.4 content on, but it can be such a slog to get there.

@Mark_Crump, I agree with KevinC. It’s worth pushing through the early game. (If it helps, the main story started to click with me about the time I first fought Ifrit at level… 20?)

That would be a very smart move of them, if so. Like I mentioned, I bounced off this game multiple times. The reason I was able to stick it out this time was a combination of 1) needing a game I could play with a gamepad for ergonomic reasons, and really wanting a long-term RPG and 2) a long break from work over the Holidays with crappy weather that didn’t make leaving the house all that appealing.

Right now, I rave about the game to my friends but I know they’re an impatient lot and wouldn’t be able to get past the initial hurdle. I’d love if they trimmed the fat in the MSQ and more quickly showed how interesting and engaging the combat can be.

Even just allowing trial accounts to get to level 60 in the Paths of the Dead would help show off combat. Every time I end up in Shashasta with my dragoon, I’m reminded of how painful early levels can be. Instead of my 48 skill rotation, I’ll do… 3. Slowly. No wonder people get bored and quit. It does get better, though!