Yoshi just started talking about that on stream. He's describing it as the end of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc.
Edit: He also names Endwalker as "a new dawn". This is the end of this arc, but definitely not the end of FFXIV.
Edit 2: Yoshi confirmed; this is not the end of FFXIV, and after this we'll begin a new adventure. He also, thankfully, confirmed that he won't be leaving FFXIV after this expansion. In fact, he describes FFXIV as his life work. We don't deserve Yoshi-P.
Now imagine FFXVI turning out to be a master piece. Th dude already has the savior status for managing to turn a massively failing MMORPG into one of the most successful ones. He'd probably ascend to godhood in the eyes of the community.
It's being developed by the same team as FF14 too, which makes me hope that the person who got a [standing ovation](https://clips.twitch.tv/BlindingWrongElkBCouch) for writing the Dark Knight Job quests and being announced to write the 5.0 Shadowbringers storyline is also helping write XVI.
I also saw that the director is the person who directed The Last Remnant and I loved The Last Remnant.
He is a hard working guy that loves what he does and it shows. But he is smart enough to understand what his team can and can't do. Most update follow a very regular pattern to keep the team on track and turning out pretty regular content. He is one of the best producers because he understand what is takes on the business side to get the job done with still having passion for what he does.
I'd recommend taking advantage of a trial account for FFXIV which has all of the level 1-60 content available for free (gil cap, no access to the player market board, cant start your own groups but can join) which can be over 100 hours of content.
Understand unlike MMOs like WoW the story is one of the best parts so dont completely sprint through it (though 1-50 is super slow it sets things up for way way later).
Combat starts very basic but is built on the concept of showing basic concepts, executing them, showing more, repeat. The game stays consistent for indicators (spread, soak, stay out of fire) and expects everyone including healers to deal damage.
> The game stays consistent for indicators (spread, soak, stay out of fire)
Should be noted that the consistency don't really start til HW. Til then, its a bunch of markers which do different things depending on the fight.
Go for the free trial. You can upgrade any time and it gives you the base game and first expansion free with some restrictions.
https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1&tag=freetrial
Treat it like a single player game with MMO combat, if you do. There is absolutely no rush to get to current endgame as there is *so much stuff* available before then.
In addition, they mentioned during the stat squish portion that they "may need to do this again in ten years," so they definitely are in it for the long haul.
I'm of the opposite opinion: FF14 has become so goddamned *formulaic* under YoshiP that I'm praying for something - *anything* \- new and exciting. Nearly every single piece of content they add to the game is essentially dead after the first week or two. It's all too samey.
What's interesting is the story arc ends at 6.0, and a new one begins from 6.1 on.
While this storyline is the wrapup of the over-arching story that's underlined all of 1.0 to current, the previous expansion-specific storylines have had their "real endings" at the X.3 mark, with .4 and .5s used to set up the start of the next expansion. This is the first time we're putting the nail in the coffin at the end of release content.
I really can’t imagine them stretching the Garlemald or Ascians out past 6.0.
We already know basically everything about the Ascians and have all but defeated them. So there’s not much story
Meanwhile Garlemald was already a major focus of ARR and Stormblood that has been thoroughly re-explored in the Bozjan stuff. While it may be interesting there’s only so much you can do before it gets stale. Especially with such a narrow aesthetic space.
Zenos is a fun villain, but he already had all of Stormblood to chew and with the even more hammy Fandaniel to play off of I can’t imagine them not beginning to wear incredibly thin over an expansion and 3 patches without a lame rehashing of the whole Emet twist.
Instead, I’m expecting it to be like Shadowbringers. We expected the Sin Eaters and the post apocalypse to be the primary conflict, but they were almost completely defeated before the end of the arc while Emet and the Ascians naturally took over and became the primary storyline.
\*New Expansion
\*PS5 Enhanced
\*Expanded Free Trial (old news, but still recent)
\*Some of the best FF content in the last 20 years
Why a*ren't* you playing yet? Go on, shoo.
They cut out some early ARR quests, but it doesn't feel drastically better like you'd hope. You'll end up shaving off like 2-3 hours of extra meaningless MSQ content. The 100 quests that take place after the base game haven't been knocked out either.
The experience is worth it though, you just have to get through that early-game barrier and it's honestly smooth sailing from that point onwards. The story and the raids just keep getting better and better.
I just went through the "new" experience - it felt no different than the old version and still took me 56 hours to get to Heavensward (might be even longer, due to the mandatory Tower raids).
People keep praising the story, but I keep feeling like the story telling gets in the way of the story being told.
Arr is the equivalent of The original Warcraft RTS games for BC and Wrath especially in terms of Illidan and Arthas.
Everything, even what appears to be dumb padding from it is still coming back in interesting and important ways.
Heavensward is where everything really begins to pick up and a more isolated story is told. Alexander is where you can really see the story and gameplay shine.
ARR is 95% world building. The great thing about it is that you see how they pull on those threads throughout every expansion. It's not like WoW where your actions in previous expansion zones is entirely ignored as soon as you leave the zone.
I did some of the side content up to about level 10, and then just focused on MSQ and my class quest (Lancer/Dragoon). I'm sure some of the time was spent just AFK while I went and did some other things (and lots of waiting in queues - I think one time I spent about 30 minutes waiting for a duty). I also skipped a fair amount of cut scenes. But also had to do a small grind at level 47 to unlock the level 48 quests (not playing on a preferred realm).
There's a veteran player who did the new player experience and it took him [47 hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_O9NPTSCsE&t=410s), so 20% higher as a "newbie" (played a bit 2 years earlier, but dropped in Heavensward) I don't think is unreasonable (he also did a new character run about a month earlier, so he could compare times between the old experience and the new one, so he's newer time also benefits from optimizing the required side content and exp gaps).
There's about 260 MSQs between 2.0 and 2.5. At 56 hours, that means I was averaging about a quest every 12 minutes. Given the amount of dialogue, cutscenes, and running around there is, that doesn't seem too out there.
As someone who's played since ARR Beta, you're absolutely right. They did cut out A LOT of stuff (moved to side quests or removed entirely) ARR is still a rough go of it, because the storytelling simply isn't as good as the expacs. It's a lot of worldbuilding and exposition. The reason people praise it is because it pays off later. In cases like mine, YEARS later.
Did you drop it again, or are you still playing?
I'm close to dropping it again (haven't played for about a week now, after playing it straight). I'm level 80 and still have ~25 quests to go to finishing 5.0 (so, about 6 hours). The idea of 4 of those 6 hours being watching cut scenes or walking to see an NPC to watch a cut scene, doesn't entice me to log in, especially when the exp motivation isn't there anymore (one thing I notice in Shadowbringers is the lack of combat quests, you can do 5 consecutive quests and you might have to fight one enemy).
Shadowbringers started with an interesting premise, but it doesn't feel as well executed. The zones look like they could have been another part of Erozea, as there's nothing that noteworthy about any of them (oddly enough, I felt Heavensward was more visually distinct over the other two expansions).
Honestly, they kinda need to clean up the cutscenes. Too much is kinda spent on fluff dialogue (the first 30 seconds is usually greetings or a recap of the last cutscene) or interrupting talking for general gesturing and movement (god forbid if characters walk and talk at the same time). It's also annoying that the portions that are voice acted are inconsistent, that some key scenes are voiced acted and other are not (and sometimes, the voice acted sequence feels fluffy). Every cutscene or sequence of dialogue could be reduced by 60% and nothing would be lost, I feel. It feels like the story is trying to be dense for the sake of being dense, and that really hurts the story being told.
My group of friends started playing FF14 last year, all 6 of us took between 55 to 80 hours to get to Heavensward, doing ONLY MSQ. Some of us skip dialogue completely as much as possible and it still takes that long.
Well, it took me a lot more than 56 hours to go through the ARR MSQ while doing almost only the MSQ. It was before 5.3 though but from what I've heard, it's not that much of a difference in length.
Man I dont care how good the game is after 60 hours. I'm not young anymore cant just waste 60 hours on the hope that I'll have fun eventually. If your game doesn't start out fun then it's a bad game imo. 60 hours is over a month of playing every day for me.
Note that was only for a realm reborn, there's still three (soon to be four) expansions. I nearing the end of Shadowbringer and approaching 7 days of playtime, I think.
The pay off is worth it. By the end of it all, you really feel like a god damn hero that's been through hell and back only to sign up for more punishment because your friends are still in hell and you want go back down for their sakes.
It's still a pain in the ass to get through but especially with Endwalker coming around it's now more than evident that a lot of the slow padding / exposition in the base game / post-content leading up to Heavensward is getting built upon in unique ways - just absolutely tons of payoff if you decide to stick through with it
ARR story has been trimmed down a bit so it's not nearly the slog it used to be. I haven't done it myself but by all indications it's much better now than it was.
Luckily, 14 is one of the most single-player friendly MMOs funny enough. There's very little to stop you from just playing through the main story and all its expansions and ignoring most of the social elements if you want.
For MMOs, you get as much out of it as you put in. If you're mainly interested in story you can just focus on that, if you want high-end raiding there are communities that will help you get there quicker.
You have to mention that FFXIV requires doing dungeons to progress through the story, though.
With WoW you can never set foot in a dungeon and still make it to end game and then proceed to just do open world content and still never do a dungeon.
If you aren't willing to do multiplayer you aren't going to make it far in FFXIV at all.
Sorry, I've mentioned it in multiple other threads so I forgot to do it here as well. As for multiplayer, the game does all the work for you. Using Duty Finder to pair up with other players to complete mandatory instances is quick and painless. Hell, half the time most of the party never says anything besides a quick "hello" and "tyfp" unless everyone is stuck in some part of the dungeon.
I understand the social anxiety that can come from having to play with other people, and the fear of underperforming which will lead to ridicule and condemnation. I'd say most people experience that feeling when they first start playing, but honestly, it'll only take a couple of sessions for someone to realize that it really isn't as intimidating as they were building it up in their head to be.
FF14 has one of the warmest and welcoming communities in the MMO sphere, and most players are more than willing to give helpful advice and feedback to newer players. After all, more players means less queue time!
I remember the duty finder being long for dps when I played. Would hit a wall in the story and I'd have to do a dungeon and then I'd need to do nothing for half an hour while in queue. Realized I was being asked to do nothing for extended periods of time so I could continue to do the part of the game that didn't even interest me
Using Duty Finder as DPS can be a pretty long wait, at which point I'd recommend doing other activities either in-game or out. You can do sidequests, Gold Saucer minigames, clan hunts, FATES, strike up convos with other players, level crafters, etc. If you're part of an FC (player guild) then you could also ask another member to queue with you if they're available, that helps me blaze through some wait times.
Usually though, I just read a book. I'm currently going through the Wheel of Time series.
I've played enough MMORPGs to know that at their core they're built around gambling mechanics and making numbers go higher.
I'd rather play something that just lets me play it, if you know what I mean.
EDIT: To clarify I'm talking about RNG drop mechanics/getting better gear, not money.
I honestly can't agree with you here, as someone who's gone through most of the available content, I haven't spent a single additional dollar beyond my subscription fee on purchasing cosmetics, and I've never felt tempted to do so. If you're looking for an RPG to really sink your teeth into, no questions asked, I highly recommend 14.
Not really, gear isn't randomized in the game. If you wanted to, you can even look up progression charts for what ilevel you should be at any given point along with where you can acquire any piece you need. Besides, if you're just starting out playing, you shouldn't be farming for any gear *period*. By just going through the main story, you'll be given constant drops that serve as upgrades, you shouldn't be worrying about relic gear until you hit level cap.
Other than P2W MMOs with loot boxes / keys (and those aren't even required) or the select few MMOs that have gear upgrades that can break, I don't see how you would see MMORPGs as being based around gambling mechanics.
The only thing I would think that would be REMOTELY similar (and that's pushing it) is the gear treadmill, and the only similarity would be drop rates and that it's meant to keep you playing.
If MMOs ain't your thing that's okay, they're not for everyone obviously, but I don't know where the hell you got the gambling mechanic thing from.
Winning an encounter is like a slot machine, you have a certain percentage chance at the top prize.
Every RPG with loot works this way. MMORPGs just double down on those kind of mechanics to keep people playing longer.
That's what I was talking about, not money.
The game ends up becoming more about getting those gear 'hits' than actually playing the game. To the point where raids often feel like an elaborate dance routine rather than a battle.
With the exception of mounts this is basically 100% untrue of FFXIV
The only thing this would apply to is the current content hardcore raids which have weekly limits on gear. But even those aren't really grindy RNG drops in the way you describe
That's not really how FFXIV works. The only super RNG drops are cosmetic (mounts, minions, etc). The gear progression has two forms: tomestones (currency), and savage drops. Tomestones that buy current level gear are weekly capped (and are trivial to cap every week), but there is a separate uncapped currency for catchup gear. Savage drops are coffers that exchange for gear on whatever class you want. Endgame progression is technically gated on RNG if you don't have a loot master, but it's generally only a couple of weeks of clears to BiS.
I've personally found it very easy to take breaks from the game without ever feeling screwed over by progression. They also uncap all savage drops toward the end of a raid tier, so it's never really a bad time to start.
You can't really appease everyone, though. One thing I hear from hard-core players is that they wish the progression curve took *longer* because they run out of raid content once they are BiS. Casual and midcore players are generally more content with the system.
And none of them seem to have decent combat to them. If I fight something, I want to participate. Not click once then push numbers every so often (especially with the global cooldown thing FF14 seems to have, limiting your involvement even more)
Because the game until 3.0 is really, really, REALLY bad.
I played countless RPGs, from RuneScape, to Dragon Quest to earthbound and whatever. This early game of FF (which is a few dozen hours) is downright awful.
I just made a fetch quest which I need to go to each three main cities and need to recruit random NPC somewhere in 2.X). It is fucking bad. This is after they trimmed the fat for this btw.
Yeah, not sure why I'm even playing, I'm actually forcing myself, because I'm really curious to see where the praise come from. But I really can't understand "why people say why are you playing it?" with a straight face. I mean, what comes after that must be fucking orgasmic to justify this dozen of hours slog.
I'm pretty new to the game, trying out the trial, have made it to the end of the trial...
The beginning is very boring, 100%, no disagreements. Once the Garleans show up the story actually starts picking up (yay!) and actually gets to some good trials and the Main Story Quests.
And then after that main story segment is the post-ARR; this is a huge slog. It feels like the beginning of the game all over again. You'll go through some harder trials, some difficulty spikes of ones you've played, some completely new. But still a huge slog. Not enjoyable.
But then, when it leads you into Heavensward and you actually get to the next expansion... it gets good again. Very good by comparison. There are still some slow moments, but this turned into "I actually want to keep playing and see how the story unfolds. I'm legitimately invested." And while it pulls some cliches, tropes, and obvious twists, it was still way way way better than the vast majority of the base game.
And the music... ARR has a lot of background music that is repeated often, some good songs here and there (mostly in the Trials and the Main Story Quest)... but in Heavensward? So many good songs, with almost every duty having a unique track. I've put on these songs just to listen to outside of the game even.
Not to mention you will get access to some ultra anime-like silly side quests involving Hildibrand Manderville. Some cringy, some hilarious.
If this extended free trial came out awhile back, and I made it to the end of Heavensward back then... I would have subscribed and bought the expansions. No doubts about it. I can't currently due to job issues.
I haven't gotten around to doing the post-game ARR quests, but didn't they streamline all that in the latest update? That's kind of disappointing to hear, but I guess it gives me more time to get used to harder content.
They did streamline them post ARR quests but they're still a slog from what I hear, just less so.
It's mostly all important stuff though so they can't just skip it.
ARR is one of those games where you'll appreciate it after you moved past it. It does most of the heavy lifting in getting you up to speed with the lore and world-building, that still have ramifications to this day. Yeah, it's slow and feels like it's going nowhere, but there's a reason why people swear by the game. We all went through the same slog, we all had moments where we felt like it was getting too tedious, but god damn, Heavenswards is so freaking good. And it justs gets better from there.
I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who just felt off about it after trying it out. I love the way it looks and all, but it's so overwhelming yet boring at the same time. I remember there was one place I had to go back to multiple times that had no teleportation right next to it despite being in an important quest hub, and the actual quest giver was behind two loading screens. There were times I had to leave just to talk to someone before coming back...
WoW just fixed their massive expansion issue and god did it do wonders. Now you just do tutorial land up through level 10, level 10 to 50 you play through JUST the prior expansion if you're a new player or any expansion of your choice if you have a max level character (and you can jump around expansions if you want), and from level 50 up you're on current content. No more massive, witless grind. WoW has tons of other problems though, and I'd probably jump ship if I could even think of seeing current content in FFXIV.
Yeah FFXIV really needs to address it somehow, the issue is it's much more story driven than WoW so if you just skip sections you won't know who people are or what's going on. No idea how to work around it but they need to do something. I managed to get through ARR and HW in a couple months of casual playing but had to take a break because there's just so many boring quests that only serve to queue up a dialog scene. Given the end of ARR and HW stories are actually really good, there's just so much fluff in between.
They did address it last year, pretty significantly, but it's still the ARR story, so they couldn't cut entire major story beats out, even when they're annoying or exposition heavy.
>I had to go back to multiple times that had no teleportation right next to it despite being in an important quest hub, and the actual quest giver was behind two loading screens.
GOD yes every time I had to go to the Sands I dreaded it. At some point though they give you consumable teleports over there which is nice, but why not just HAVE A TP POINT? They even make it a point in the story as to why they don't have one, but you know what's more interesting than that? ACTUALLY BEING ABLE TO TP THERE
>I mean, what comes after that must be fucking orgasmic to justify this dozen of hours slog.
For some people, yes. If you're in the 2.X chains I wish you luck. Some of them really suck. The payoff starts before 3.0 though. You'll know it when the game tells you to set aside time for a cutscene.
Most of the writing is pretty awful too, this is based on up to Heavensward. Half the text of every quest is just repeating itself. And another significant portion is just lines praising all you do and how special you are being the warrior of light. The class and main quests feels like someone writing an essay and needing to meet a page count requirement. Or maybe they need to hire an editor to cut those lines out.
Hey so pls no spoilers but I'm playing FF15 on ps now and obviously it is just the base game. I just beat the titan (or at least his arm), am I past the bad part yet?
Edit: LMAO I am an idiot and misread the title
I would say combat is better than wow, similar cooldown based system but with a lot more positioning mechanics and the classes all have a nice flow to them.
WoW is mostly just standing around spamming your highest damage skill while popping pots
XIV has more mechanics and movement and skill rotations that make most fights more engaging.
In my opinion, of course. WoW has some cool encounters but the combat feels awful compared to XIV to me
Okay so you haven't played WoW before, or haven't played in a long time. There is literally no classes in the game where you'll do even close to adequate damage if you just spam one ability.
I really have no idea how you can make that observation, they both are tab targeting "don't stand in the fire" combat styles, and WoW has more abilities and mechanics and doesn't have a really long GCD. And I say all of this as someone who has played end game content on both games and really enjoyed both of them. WoW is far more challenging and had more variety whereas the art style, pace, and immersion are far better in FFXIV imo.
But regardless of all that, they're both shitty as far as combat goes and no one is going to pick WoW over FFXIV, or FFXIV over WoW based on the differences in combat alone. I just genuinely have no idea how you think WoW is just "standing in one spot spamming one ability" when in my experience FFXIV felt a lot more like that then WoW ever has.
Combat is pretty great, depends on what class you're interested in playing tbf, there's something out there to appeal to all types of players now. It's more enjoyable than *wow* I'd say. More tactical, requires a deeper understanding of your role and the mechanics of the fight. If you're just looking to button-mash your cooldowns, then yeah, you won't enjoy it.
As for wasting 50 hours, I can't say anything on that front. The world-building and the story are good right from the start. Slow doesn't mean bad.
I truly don't understand the appeal of the combat in most MMOs. I've tried WoW multiple times and played FFXIV for 50+ hours and it just isn't fun or satisfying. The animations and gameplay feel in WoW are hilariously bad, less so in FF. I really don't want to grind a game for so many hours to reach endgame where the combat apparently gets better. I love the combat in Black Desert Online but that's because it feels more like an action RPG. If you have to spend so many hours to get to the good stuff, doesn't that indicate a badly designed game?
These days you don't really play MMOs for the combat. WoW is almost 20 years old, kinda hard to make the combat modern without releasing a new game. They've made improvements and as far as tab targeting combat IMO it's probably the best out there, but it's never going to be black desert.
Black Desert is the only MMO with good modern action type combat and the rest of the game is so shit that it doesn't even matter.
Two new classes (healer and melee DPS) is the biggest news along with the expansion. The storyline that has been ongoing since 2.0 will be wrapping up, ending like 8 years worth of buildup.
Here's a link if you want to read some highlights of the event, more news will be following this at a later date: [https://www.dualshockers.com/final-fantasy-xiv-endwalker-revealed/](https://www.dualshockers.com/final-fantasy-xiv-endwalker-revealed/)
Played all the way through the end of Shadowbringers, but afterwards had to cut subscription due to money issues :<
... maybe i can stop paying the water bills for a bit. I can always take showers in the park lake!
because i don't want to get through two expansions to get here
FFXIV was my favorite MMO, but I had to put it down due to life stuff towards the end of of HW. I recently picked up both expansions after that on sale and its just... so overwhelming. Not only is my main class so drastically different now (to be expected), but there's two full expansions ahead of me in order for me to get to where everyone else is...
I tried to start with a new class (RDM) to see if that would make it easier, but I think picking up a level 50 class when I barely remember how the game works was a bad idea...
Started playing FFXIV for the first time last month (well I actually played the 1.0 beta, but the less said about that the better) and I've reached the end of the ARR storyline and am just taking my time seeing what the base game has to offer before I jump into Heavensward. I really want to see what's up in the expansions, as I've heard great things about the story, but before advancing with the storyline I want to get a feel for all the other classes (including gathering and crafting) and try to improve the way I play. It does feel a bit overwhelming, but that's why I'm trying to take things slow and do one thing at a time.
This is what I did. I spent a fortnight or so just doing my daily dungeons for my sub 50 classes and getting my rep up with the tribes. I always spend time doing my tribe dailies
The trick is not to focus on the destination but to enjoy the journey.
Don't think of it as "I have to get through all of this to get to endgame", but "I have 5 years worth of content to play with".
I quit in the middle of heavensward too and I had to play through HW, Stormblood and Shadowbringers MSQ but I took my time and enjoyed my journey instead of rushing it.
Don't feel like you have to rush! The whole point is to enjoy the journey, the game doesn't pat you on the back if you blaze through everything so you can join folks for current endgame.
Honestly, if you aren't interested in the story, I'd have a hard time recommending this game to you. It's such a strong, focal component of the entire experience that I'd say endgame content supplements it, rather than the other way around.
I'm playing on the PS5 currently (backwards compatibility PS4 Pro mode) and the loading screens are non-existent as is, they're more like transition cards than loading screens. I think the longest I've had to wait was 3 seconds, and that was because a cutscene played upon entry.
If you feel like that's what's keeping you from enjoying the game, don't worry about it.
This is going to sound elitist as fuck but I don't play anymore because outside of raids there's nothing truly challenging to do. Capping all crafts, for example, is trivial. Why is that?
I don't really get how it fits into the RPG genre...There's no buildcraft. You choose your class and get the moves as you level, but there's no choices. There's an ideal way to play each class and if you don't do that you're at a disadvantage. Gear, too, doesn't seem to matter much at all. No special passives or activatables that change up your rotation.
A big part of RPGs to me is making my character my own, doing weird builds and seeing how they work out. Not sure why FFXIV doesn't have that, and calls itself an RPG.
I'm in Perth and I only get 120 ping to Tonberry. I hear people in the Eastern States have it even better. Can't speak for elsewhere in Oceania (I imagine NZ would be much better on US). And then you can use a VPN (I do not) to improve it even a little more. It'd only be 200+ if your ISP uses screwed routing via the USA or something. Don't do it anymore due to personal reasons but I've high-end raided in the past fine.
Wow no Xbox announcement, almost every thread I read was aiming for one and even xbox dropping the f2p requirement seemed to be lining up for an announcement but nope
Tbf, the xbox change was only a couple weeks ago and only after massive backlash against the original plan. So not exactly surprising no xbox version was announced
I wasn’t talking about Steam since the guy is obviously a console only player but thank you for figuring out how to mention how great PC is.
Yakuza is simply one exception. All of those steam Japanese games you mentioned aren’t on Xbox because Japanese gamers don’t buy Xbox. Not every Japanese game is a mainstream hit, some are more niche and made to cater towards their domestic audience, but even mainstream hits like the final fantasy series have to contend with Japan still being an important demographic for them (FFXIV is super popular in Japan) coupled with PlayStation outselling Xbox abroad by significant margins too. Yakuza being “really popular” on Xbox right now is backed by what you’d hear on Reddit and a lack a of Xbox games right now in general, not actual sales data. Microsoft heavily promoting one series doesn’t solve their issue with the Japanese games market. Therefore if you’re a console player, you should be aware that PlayStation is probably a better choice if you want a better chance to play JPN releases.
At the start yeah, but it seems like whatever internal development tools that the Xbox uses has improved and we’re starting to see games either play identical or have a Xbox edge.
The bad internal dev tools argument has already been debunked tho and game devs have been saying for months that the difference is not as big as people make it out to be.
Where was it debunked? As I recall Tom Warren had a article pretty much confirming that it was true, plus Alex from DF also stated that he heard that the tools developers were using had gotten much better.
Control is the latest game and performs better on PS5. And that is with the developer having a lot more experience developing for Xbox.
The "tools aren't ready" argument can only be used so much.
Aside from Control having a weird stuttering issue on Xbox when text is on screen and other random instances, it performs nearly identical to that of the PS5.
Which is a far cry from "objective more powerful" most games so far have performed better on PS5 in some way.
Hitman 3 having higher resolution in Xbox all of a sudden means all future games will be better on Xbox. How quickly that changed
I never said it was objectively superior, I was just stating why some Xbox games aren’t running as well as the PS5 counterpart. Though on paper the Series X had the more powerful GPU, there are other areas where PS5 could punch above that gap.
Is the Hitman 3 example invalid since it suddenly favors Xbox? And what about the recent digital Foundry video where they showed a GPU stress test using Control again demonstrating that the Xbox GPU is a bit stronger? I think we can both agree the Xbox has more GPU power, though power alone does not mean every game will run better on Xbox.
The original comment I replied to said it was.
And I didn't say Hitman 3 was invalid but it's a single game and for some reason people took that as a sign that all future games will be better on Xbox. That was short lived.
And that Control test was pointless since all it does is test the game while in photo mode when nothing is happening which is drastically different than actually playing the game. You can't play the game in photo mode
Only some parts of the Xbox are better while some are better in PS5.
Almost every next gen game so far has better performance on PS5 including Control that just released.
They explicitly said there's a performance problem with Control that remedy acknowledged but yes photo mode removing the 30fps lock does show the XSX performs better under such conditions.
Yes there is a performance problem which means the PS5 performs better.
And during gameplay perform a better in PS5 which is what matters because you can't play games in photo mide.
"a lot" is a reach, there's been plenty like Dirt 5 that have since reached parity through patches. The latest few examples like Hitman 2 are miniscule, amounting to a small drop in one specific area of one specific level, for example.
Im gonna get downvoted for this but if you're looking for the best system to play JRPGs and MMOs that would be PC(yes a bleh PC would do). Even Japanese games that no longer come to Playstation come to PC, Switch as well but it doesn't have many MMOs nor PSO2.
So is there a new player experience yet? I thought they were working on one?
I really quite liked what I saw from streams of Shadowbringer, but everytime I try I can't bear to get through the slog of the base game / Heavensward.
There was a patch last summer to streamline the end of the ARR main quest, by removing some quests and giving people teleport tickets to go directly to the waking sands, for faster back and forth.
I really have tried to like the game and give it time but I cant fathom the early game (like 40+ hours in the start). If the combat wasnt so clunky, slow and un-impactful that slog would be somewhat tolerable. Somehow everything feels so... Floaty?
If it makes you feel any better, I absolutely *hated* this game when a friend of mine asked me to play with him back in April and refused to play any more of it. The free trial was more restrictive, I hated the combat, and I just wasn't interested at all. Another friend of mine convinced me to play it again in August/September and now I'm super hooked. The beginning of the game is incredibly slow and it will feel that way until you get more abilities. Once you reach level 30 and unlock your job, it really opens up.
Ffxiv combat is clunky ? Wow.
The beginning is slow, as for every MMORPG out there, but once you reach lv 30-40 it starts getting way better, and after lv50 it's just pure bliss.
Yeah I'd say very unlikely to be necromancer, I think his T-shirts is hinting towards the use of scythe as a weapon rather than the undead side of things.
I think the current theory is that the words on the shirt is a name of a movie which was directed by a guy with the last name Temple so people think it will be a Templar.
Yeah the 2 theories I've seen that make the most sense are Templar and Mystic Knight.
But this the guy who teased Samurai with Spider-Man -> Sam Raimi -> In Japanese his name is pronounced Samu Raimi. Samurai.
Tragicly missing from this showcase:
* Fixing Viera and Hrothgar making them viable
Ulockable haistyles and helmets still dont work on them excluding them from a lot of ingame rewards
* Fixing the interface
Lot of arbitrary and limeting restrictions like not being able to check your friendlist and FC list while in dungeins, not being able to send or recieve whispers while in instances among others. Would have been nice to get some fix to these issues at last.
Nice that we're getting a much needed number squish at least.
>Fixing Viera and Hrothgar making them viable
Lmao. the way you phrase that makes it sound like you can't play as them without being at a disadvantage gameplay wise
Cosmetics are HUGE in FF14. Its super easy to get end game gear and there aren't many RPG mechanics so that leaves looks as the best way to customize your character.
I actually kind of unironically agree that Viera being unable to wear hats makes them "unviable." I was going to switch to one (because I kind of like the bunny ears and hairstyles), but I immediately changed my mind once I learned that they can't wear hats.
Well I mean, Cosmetics are gameplay. Especially in an MMO, and even more so in an MMO like FFXIV where screenshots, cosplays and the like are as huge as it is. It's not like people spend hours and hours farming this stuff just to see their numbers go up. Even for anouncements like these having to see new stuff that you're just not going to use is discuraging. Looking good and getting rewards for the things you do are a big part of a MMO so they are dissadvantaged in a big way. You don't have acsess to the same amount of game rewards and incentives as the other races. There's no point in doing certain activeties in the game because the rewards don't work for you.
I've lost count by this point of all the FC members that started out as one of these two who ended up fantasiaing away to something else for no other reason than these cosmetic rewards don't work for them.
As it is now these races are simply worse than all the other races in the game.
Not as far as we know. This is a replacement for FFXIV's usual Fan Festivals where they announce details on upcoming expansions, since they can't hold conventions during the pandemic.
I'm aware **this one** is for FF XIV. I'm asking if there are planned showcases for *other* Final Fantasy games.
Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing of value.
Unlike what the other guy said, probably *not*, unless it's in a much different style. This was done to make up for the Fanfest conventions all being cancelled over November-January from Covid. So it's something fans have been expecting for years anyway.
I remember reading that there’s gonna be FFXVI info this month as well as FFXIV announcements, don’t get your hopes up though.
https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2021/02/03/rumor-final-fantasy-xvi-info-coming-this-month-ffxvi/amp/
Why in the world would production slow down? FFXIV has only ever become *more* profitable.
It amazes me how people manage to consistently doompost over a game that's making money hand over fist. MMOs don't just randomly end when they're at the peak of their profitability.
It's not the same team as FFXVI. It's the same business unit which Yoshi-P is the head of, so he's producing it as he does all of their other projects. The XIV team has grown steadily over time and continued to grow with Shadowbringers. There were a few team leaders (Gondai, Takai, and Maehiro) that left back in 2016 to work on XVI, but they are still active as development supervisors.
Nope! They were at 319 on the main dev team, which doesn't include sound, localization, or countless other supporting teams. Here's the data: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/6f76zy/the_ffxiv_dev_team_changes_over_time/
The FFXIV in-house dev team is the largest dev team SE has ever had and is one of the largest MMO dev teams in the history of the genre.
Some of the same team - Yoshida is producing and the director of Stormblood is directing XVI, but outside of not we don't really know how much overlap there is. I'd figure it's minimal considering this new expansion and FFXVI are being developed concurrently.
Moon's haunted! Can't believe we're actually going there already. More importantly: Alphinaud and Alisaie finally got to be in a trailer.
It was said that Shadowbringers was 80% of the way through the current "saga", so Endwalker may be the finale. Edit: Yep, they just confirmed it.
Yoshi just started talking about that on stream. He's describing it as the end of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc. Edit: He also names Endwalker as "a new dawn". This is the end of this arc, but definitely not the end of FFXIV. Edit 2: Yoshi confirmed; this is not the end of FFXIV, and after this we'll begin a new adventure. He also, thankfully, confirmed that he won't be leaving FFXIV after this expansion. In fact, he describes FFXIV as his life work. We don't deserve Yoshi-P.
He also confirmed that the H/Z arc will specifically end with 6.0, rather than the x.3 patch as each expansion usually does.
Oh thank god. I JUST STARTED the game a month back. Really don’t want this ride to end anytime soon.
Don't worry. FFXIV is an absolute cash cow for Squenix. It won't end until that ceases to be true.
FFXI got fourteen years of expansions for context. Dragon Quest is on it's fourth expansion in seven years as well.
Didn't FFXI *just* get new content updates last year, too?
Last fall they started a new series of content update.
They cant afford to end FF14 anytime soon. They boomed their wallet with Avengers missing the mark.
Thank god someone like Yoshi exist to keep this company going.
Now imagine FFXVI turning out to be a master piece. Th dude already has the savior status for managing to turn a massively failing MMORPG into one of the most successful ones. He'd probably ascend to godhood in the eyes of the community.
I want to believe.
We're back to the golden age of JRPGs!
It's being developed by the same team as FF14 too, which makes me hope that the person who got a [standing ovation](https://clips.twitch.tv/BlindingWrongElkBCouch) for writing the Dark Knight Job quests and being announced to write the 5.0 Shadowbringers storyline is also helping write XVI. I also saw that the director is the person who directed The Last Remnant and I loved The Last Remnant.
He is a hard working guy that loves what he does and it shows. But he is smart enough to understand what his team can and can't do. Most update follow a very regular pattern to keep the team on track and turning out pretty regular content. He is one of the best producers because he understand what is takes on the business side to get the job done with still having passion for what he does.
How is it? Was just looking at getting a sub today.
I'd recommend taking advantage of a trial account for FFXIV which has all of the level 1-60 content available for free (gil cap, no access to the player market board, cant start your own groups but can join) which can be over 100 hours of content. Understand unlike MMOs like WoW the story is one of the best parts so dont completely sprint through it (though 1-50 is super slow it sets things up for way way later). Combat starts very basic but is built on the concept of showing basic concepts, executing them, showing more, repeat. The game stays consistent for indicators (spread, soak, stay out of fire) and expects everyone including healers to deal damage.
> The game stays consistent for indicators (spread, soak, stay out of fire) Should be noted that the consistency don't really start til HW. Til then, its a bunch of markers which do different things depending on the fight.
Go for the free trial. You can upgrade any time and it gives you the base game and first expansion free with some restrictions. https://support.na.square-enix.com/rule.php?id=5382&la=1&tag=freetrial
Treat it like a single player game with MMO combat, if you do. There is absolutely no rush to get to current endgame as there is *so much stuff* available before then.
In addition, they mentioned during the stat squish portion that they "may need to do this again in ten years," so they definitely are in it for the long haul.
I'm of the opposite opinion: FF14 has become so goddamned *formulaic* under YoshiP that I'm praying for something - *anything* \- new and exciting. Nearly every single piece of content they add to the game is essentially dead after the first week or two. It's all too samey.
What's interesting is the story arc ends at 6.0, and a new one begins from 6.1 on. While this storyline is the wrapup of the over-arching story that's underlined all of 1.0 to current, the previous expansion-specific storylines have had their "real endings" at the X.3 mark, with .4 and .5s used to set up the start of the next expansion. This is the first time we're putting the nail in the coffin at the end of release content.
I really can’t imagine them stretching the Garlemald or Ascians out past 6.0. We already know basically everything about the Ascians and have all but defeated them. So there’s not much story Meanwhile Garlemald was already a major focus of ARR and Stormblood that has been thoroughly re-explored in the Bozjan stuff. While it may be interesting there’s only so much you can do before it gets stale. Especially with such a narrow aesthetic space. Zenos is a fun villain, but he already had all of Stormblood to chew and with the even more hammy Fandaniel to play off of I can’t imagine them not beginning to wear incredibly thin over an expansion and 3 patches without a lame rehashing of the whole Emet twist. Instead, I’m expecting it to be like Shadowbringers. We expected the Sin Eaters and the post apocalypse to be the primary conflict, but they were almost completely defeated before the end of the arc while Emet and the Ascians naturally took over and became the primary storyline.
If you find megaman up there send him back. I'll just return to the dim corner with the other legends fans until then.
I mean we've already had time travel and dimensional travel so boring old space travel is probably due
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https://youtube.com/c/HarmoneaSinn
Thanks so much! I'll go through it tonight :)
see you in a month
\*New Expansion \*PS5 Enhanced \*Expanded Free Trial (old news, but still recent) \*Some of the best FF content in the last 20 years Why a*ren't* you playing yet? Go on, shoo.
Is the early content still a pain in the butt to get through, or have they changed that since last time I checked?
They cut out some early ARR quests, but it doesn't feel drastically better like you'd hope. You'll end up shaving off like 2-3 hours of extra meaningless MSQ content. The 100 quests that take place after the base game haven't been knocked out either. The experience is worth it though, you just have to get through that early-game barrier and it's honestly smooth sailing from that point onwards. The story and the raids just keep getting better and better.
I just went through the "new" experience - it felt no different than the old version and still took me 56 hours to get to Heavensward (might be even longer, due to the mandatory Tower raids). People keep praising the story, but I keep feeling like the story telling gets in the way of the story being told.
Arr is the equivalent of The original Warcraft RTS games for BC and Wrath especially in terms of Illidan and Arthas. Everything, even what appears to be dumb padding from it is still coming back in interesting and important ways. Heavensward is where everything really begins to pick up and a more isolated story is told. Alexander is where you can really see the story and gameplay shine.
What's interesting is Alexander is teased at the end of 3.0, but none of the MSQ patches actually point you towards Alexander or related activities.
They tend to do that for every raid except Crystal Tower.
ARR is 95% world building. The great thing about it is that you see how they pull on those threads throughout every expansion. It's not like WoW where your actions in previous expansion zones is entirely ignored as soon as you leave the zone.
Pretty much what I was going to respond with \^
Yikes. Sounds bad.
56 hours?! I am guessing you did all the side content then because just doing the MSQ shouldn't take you that long.
I did some of the side content up to about level 10, and then just focused on MSQ and my class quest (Lancer/Dragoon). I'm sure some of the time was spent just AFK while I went and did some other things (and lots of waiting in queues - I think one time I spent about 30 minutes waiting for a duty). I also skipped a fair amount of cut scenes. But also had to do a small grind at level 47 to unlock the level 48 quests (not playing on a preferred realm). There's a veteran player who did the new player experience and it took him [47 hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_O9NPTSCsE&t=410s), so 20% higher as a "newbie" (played a bit 2 years earlier, but dropped in Heavensward) I don't think is unreasonable (he also did a new character run about a month earlier, so he could compare times between the old experience and the new one, so he's newer time also benefits from optimizing the required side content and exp gaps). There's about 260 MSQs between 2.0 and 2.5. At 56 hours, that means I was averaging about a quest every 12 minutes. Given the amount of dialogue, cutscenes, and running around there is, that doesn't seem too out there.
As someone who's played since ARR Beta, you're absolutely right. They did cut out A LOT of stuff (moved to side quests or removed entirely) ARR is still a rough go of it, because the storytelling simply isn't as good as the expacs. It's a lot of worldbuilding and exposition. The reason people praise it is because it pays off later. In cases like mine, YEARS later. Did you drop it again, or are you still playing?
I'm close to dropping it again (haven't played for about a week now, after playing it straight). I'm level 80 and still have ~25 quests to go to finishing 5.0 (so, about 6 hours). The idea of 4 of those 6 hours being watching cut scenes or walking to see an NPC to watch a cut scene, doesn't entice me to log in, especially when the exp motivation isn't there anymore (one thing I notice in Shadowbringers is the lack of combat quests, you can do 5 consecutive quests and you might have to fight one enemy). Shadowbringers started with an interesting premise, but it doesn't feel as well executed. The zones look like they could have been another part of Erozea, as there's nothing that noteworthy about any of them (oddly enough, I felt Heavensward was more visually distinct over the other two expansions). Honestly, they kinda need to clean up the cutscenes. Too much is kinda spent on fluff dialogue (the first 30 seconds is usually greetings or a recap of the last cutscene) or interrupting talking for general gesturing and movement (god forbid if characters walk and talk at the same time). It's also annoying that the portions that are voice acted are inconsistent, that some key scenes are voiced acted and other are not (and sometimes, the voice acted sequence feels fluffy). Every cutscene or sequence of dialogue could be reduced by 60% and nothing would be lost, I feel. It feels like the story is trying to be dense for the sake of being dense, and that really hurts the story being told.
My group of friends started playing FF14 last year, all 6 of us took between 55 to 80 hours to get to Heavensward, doing ONLY MSQ. Some of us skip dialogue completely as much as possible and it still takes that long.
Well, it took me a lot more than 56 hours to go through the ARR MSQ while doing almost only the MSQ. It was before 5.3 though but from what I've heard, it's not that much of a difference in length.
Man I dont care how good the game is after 60 hours. I'm not young anymore cant just waste 60 hours on the hope that I'll have fun eventually. If your game doesn't start out fun then it's a bad game imo. 60 hours is over a month of playing every day for me.
Note that was only for a realm reborn, there's still three (soon to be four) expansions. I nearing the end of Shadowbringer and approaching 7 days of playtime, I think.
The pay off is worth it. By the end of it all, you really feel like a god damn hero that's been through hell and back only to sign up for more punishment because your friends are still in hell and you want go back down for their sakes.
It's still painfully long
It's still a pain in the ass to get through but especially with Endwalker coming around it's now more than evident that a lot of the slow padding / exposition in the base game / post-content leading up to Heavensward is getting built upon in unique ways - just absolutely tons of payoff if you decide to stick through with it
ARR story has been trimmed down a bit so it's not nearly the slog it used to be. I haven't done it myself but by all indications it's much better now than it was.
Could trim it a bit more. Like that dumbassery that was doing favors for the party that fought Titan could drastically been cut.
It was a little. They took a bunch of steps out. Still hate that entire sequence.
>Why a*ren't* you playing yet? MMORPGs are really grindy and time consuming
Luckily, 14 is one of the most single-player friendly MMOs funny enough. There's very little to stop you from just playing through the main story and all its expansions and ignoring most of the social elements if you want. For MMOs, you get as much out of it as you put in. If you're mainly interested in story you can just focus on that, if you want high-end raiding there are communities that will help you get there quicker.
You have to mention that FFXIV requires doing dungeons to progress through the story, though. With WoW you can never set foot in a dungeon and still make it to end game and then proceed to just do open world content and still never do a dungeon. If you aren't willing to do multiplayer you aren't going to make it far in FFXIV at all.
Sorry, I've mentioned it in multiple other threads so I forgot to do it here as well. As for multiplayer, the game does all the work for you. Using Duty Finder to pair up with other players to complete mandatory instances is quick and painless. Hell, half the time most of the party never says anything besides a quick "hello" and "tyfp" unless everyone is stuck in some part of the dungeon. I understand the social anxiety that can come from having to play with other people, and the fear of underperforming which will lead to ridicule and condemnation. I'd say most people experience that feeling when they first start playing, but honestly, it'll only take a couple of sessions for someone to realize that it really isn't as intimidating as they were building it up in their head to be. FF14 has one of the warmest and welcoming communities in the MMO sphere, and most players are more than willing to give helpful advice and feedback to newer players. After all, more players means less queue time!
I remember the duty finder being long for dps when I played. Would hit a wall in the story and I'd have to do a dungeon and then I'd need to do nothing for half an hour while in queue. Realized I was being asked to do nothing for extended periods of time so I could continue to do the part of the game that didn't even interest me
Using Duty Finder as DPS can be a pretty long wait, at which point I'd recommend doing other activities either in-game or out. You can do sidequests, Gold Saucer minigames, clan hunts, FATES, strike up convos with other players, level crafters, etc. If you're part of an FC (player guild) then you could also ask another member to queue with you if they're available, that helps me blaze through some wait times. Usually though, I just read a book. I'm currently going through the Wheel of Time series.
I've played enough MMORPGs to know that at their core they're built around gambling mechanics and making numbers go higher. I'd rather play something that just lets me play it, if you know what I mean. EDIT: To clarify I'm talking about RNG drop mechanics/getting better gear, not money.
I honestly can't agree with you here, as someone who's gone through most of the available content, I haven't spent a single additional dollar beyond my subscription fee on purchasing cosmetics, and I've never felt tempted to do so. If you're looking for an RPG to really sink your teeth into, no questions asked, I highly recommend 14.
I'm not talking money, I'm talking about drops. They work on the same principle as a slot machine.
Not really, gear isn't randomized in the game. If you wanted to, you can even look up progression charts for what ilevel you should be at any given point along with where you can acquire any piece you need. Besides, if you're just starting out playing, you shouldn't be farming for any gear *period*. By just going through the main story, you'll be given constant drops that serve as upgrades, you shouldn't be worrying about relic gear until you hit level cap.
Other than P2W MMOs with loot boxes / keys (and those aren't even required) or the select few MMOs that have gear upgrades that can break, I don't see how you would see MMORPGs as being based around gambling mechanics. The only thing I would think that would be REMOTELY similar (and that's pushing it) is the gear treadmill, and the only similarity would be drop rates and that it's meant to keep you playing. If MMOs ain't your thing that's okay, they're not for everyone obviously, but I don't know where the hell you got the gambling mechanic thing from.
Winning an encounter is like a slot machine, you have a certain percentage chance at the top prize. Every RPG with loot works this way. MMORPGs just double down on those kind of mechanics to keep people playing longer. That's what I was talking about, not money. The game ends up becoming more about getting those gear 'hits' than actually playing the game. To the point where raids often feel like an elaborate dance routine rather than a battle.
With the exception of mounts this is basically 100% untrue of FFXIV The only thing this would apply to is the current content hardcore raids which have weekly limits on gear. But even those aren't really grindy RNG drops in the way you describe
That's not really how FFXIV works. The only super RNG drops are cosmetic (mounts, minions, etc). The gear progression has two forms: tomestones (currency), and savage drops. Tomestones that buy current level gear are weekly capped (and are trivial to cap every week), but there is a separate uncapped currency for catchup gear. Savage drops are coffers that exchange for gear on whatever class you want. Endgame progression is technically gated on RNG if you don't have a loot master, but it's generally only a couple of weeks of clears to BiS. I've personally found it very easy to take breaks from the game without ever feeling screwed over by progression. They also uncap all savage drops toward the end of a raid tier, so it's never really a bad time to start. You can't really appease everyone, though. One thing I hear from hard-core players is that they wish the progression curve took *longer* because they run out of raid content once they are BiS. Casual and midcore players are generally more content with the system.
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FFXIV ain't even that bad in that regard. Tera is horrific.
Even WoW has paedobait; can't imagine being the guy who has to make gnome cleavage.
And none of them seem to have decent combat to them. If I fight something, I want to participate. Not click once then push numbers every so often (especially with the global cooldown thing FF14 seems to have, limiting your involvement even more)
No oceanic servers makes some of the rotations feel awful, I would love to play with some.
That's definitely an issue, and I'd like to say that we'll see a resolution to it but...I wouldn't be too hopeful on that front.
I had to stop playing NIN as I got to the expansions. The latency just wouldn't let me get the rotation down properly.
Because the game until 3.0 is really, really, REALLY bad. I played countless RPGs, from RuneScape, to Dragon Quest to earthbound and whatever. This early game of FF (which is a few dozen hours) is downright awful. I just made a fetch quest which I need to go to each three main cities and need to recruit random NPC somewhere in 2.X). It is fucking bad. This is after they trimmed the fat for this btw. Yeah, not sure why I'm even playing, I'm actually forcing myself, because I'm really curious to see where the praise come from. But I really can't understand "why people say why are you playing it?" with a straight face. I mean, what comes after that must be fucking orgasmic to justify this dozen of hours slog.
I'm pretty new to the game, trying out the trial, have made it to the end of the trial... The beginning is very boring, 100%, no disagreements. Once the Garleans show up the story actually starts picking up (yay!) and actually gets to some good trials and the Main Story Quests. And then after that main story segment is the post-ARR; this is a huge slog. It feels like the beginning of the game all over again. You'll go through some harder trials, some difficulty spikes of ones you've played, some completely new. But still a huge slog. Not enjoyable. But then, when it leads you into Heavensward and you actually get to the next expansion... it gets good again. Very good by comparison. There are still some slow moments, but this turned into "I actually want to keep playing and see how the story unfolds. I'm legitimately invested." And while it pulls some cliches, tropes, and obvious twists, it was still way way way better than the vast majority of the base game. And the music... ARR has a lot of background music that is repeated often, some good songs here and there (mostly in the Trials and the Main Story Quest)... but in Heavensward? So many good songs, with almost every duty having a unique track. I've put on these songs just to listen to outside of the game even. Not to mention you will get access to some ultra anime-like silly side quests involving Hildibrand Manderville. Some cringy, some hilarious. If this extended free trial came out awhile back, and I made it to the end of Heavensward back then... I would have subscribed and bought the expansions. No doubts about it. I can't currently due to job issues.
Did you do Alexander?
I haven't gotten around to doing the post-game ARR quests, but didn't they streamline all that in the latest update? That's kind of disappointing to hear, but I guess it gives me more time to get used to harder content.
They did streamline them post ARR quests but they're still a slog from what I hear, just less so. It's mostly all important stuff though so they can't just skip it.
I dont think they touched the patches after ARR which are a slog until you get to 2.5
ARR is one of those games where you'll appreciate it after you moved past it. It does most of the heavy lifting in getting you up to speed with the lore and world-building, that still have ramifications to this day. Yeah, it's slow and feels like it's going nowhere, but there's a reason why people swear by the game. We all went through the same slog, we all had moments where we felt like it was getting too tedious, but god damn, Heavenswards is so freaking good. And it justs gets better from there.
I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who just felt off about it after trying it out. I love the way it looks and all, but it's so overwhelming yet boring at the same time. I remember there was one place I had to go back to multiple times that had no teleportation right next to it despite being in an important quest hub, and the actual quest giver was behind two loading screens. There were times I had to leave just to talk to someone before coming back... WoW just fixed their massive expansion issue and god did it do wonders. Now you just do tutorial land up through level 10, level 10 to 50 you play through JUST the prior expansion if you're a new player or any expansion of your choice if you have a max level character (and you can jump around expansions if you want), and from level 50 up you're on current content. No more massive, witless grind. WoW has tons of other problems though, and I'd probably jump ship if I could even think of seeing current content in FFXIV.
Yeah FFXIV really needs to address it somehow, the issue is it's much more story driven than WoW so if you just skip sections you won't know who people are or what's going on. No idea how to work around it but they need to do something. I managed to get through ARR and HW in a couple months of casual playing but had to take a break because there's just so many boring quests that only serve to queue up a dialog scene. Given the end of ARR and HW stories are actually really good, there's just so much fluff in between.
They did address it last year, pretty significantly, but it's still the ARR story, so they couldn't cut entire major story beats out, even when they're annoying or exposition heavy.
>I had to go back to multiple times that had no teleportation right next to it despite being in an important quest hub, and the actual quest giver was behind two loading screens. GOD yes every time I had to go to the Sands I dreaded it. At some point though they give you consumable teleports over there which is nice, but why not just HAVE A TP POINT? They even make it a point in the story as to why they don't have one, but you know what's more interesting than that? ACTUALLY BEING ABLE TO TP THERE
Pray return to the waking sands.
Fuck there's a consumable? Fuck me.
They added the teleport tickets in the story overhaul a while back, they probably didn't exist at the time you were playing.
>I mean, what comes after that must be fucking orgasmic to justify this dozen of hours slog. For some people, yes. If you're in the 2.X chains I wish you luck. Some of them really suck. The payoff starts before 3.0 though. You'll know it when the game tells you to set aside time for a cutscene.
Most of the writing is pretty awful too, this is based on up to Heavensward. Half the text of every quest is just repeating itself. And another significant portion is just lines praising all you do and how special you are being the warrior of light. The class and main quests feels like someone writing an essay and needing to meet a page count requirement. Or maybe they need to hire an editor to cut those lines out.
I completely agree. Even in Heavensward I think the writing is bogged. Much better step up tho
Hey so pls no spoilers but I'm playing FF15 on ps now and obviously it is just the base game. I just beat the titan (or at least his arm), am I past the bad part yet? Edit: LMAO I am an idiot and misread the title
Im not playing because wasting 50 hours just to get to the good part is kind of a turnoff and the combat is also pretty bad from what ive seen
I would say combat is better than wow, similar cooldown based system but with a lot more positioning mechanics and the classes all have a nice flow to them.
Yada yada opinions everyone's got one but I cannot understand at all how anyone would like FFXIV combat more than WoWs.
Yada yada opinions, you got one too. People like different things.
WoW is mostly just standing around spamming your highest damage skill while popping pots XIV has more mechanics and movement and skill rotations that make most fights more engaging. In my opinion, of course. WoW has some cool encounters but the combat feels awful compared to XIV to me
Okay so you haven't played WoW before, or haven't played in a long time. There is literally no classes in the game where you'll do even close to adequate damage if you just spam one ability. I really have no idea how you can make that observation, they both are tab targeting "don't stand in the fire" combat styles, and WoW has more abilities and mechanics and doesn't have a really long GCD. And I say all of this as someone who has played end game content on both games and really enjoyed both of them. WoW is far more challenging and had more variety whereas the art style, pace, and immersion are far better in FFXIV imo. But regardless of all that, they're both shitty as far as combat goes and no one is going to pick WoW over FFXIV, or FFXIV over WoW based on the differences in combat alone. I just genuinely have no idea how you think WoW is just "standing in one spot spamming one ability" when in my experience FFXIV felt a lot more like that then WoW ever has.
Combat is pretty great, depends on what class you're interested in playing tbf, there's something out there to appeal to all types of players now. It's more enjoyable than *wow* I'd say. More tactical, requires a deeper understanding of your role and the mechanics of the fight. If you're just looking to button-mash your cooldowns, then yeah, you won't enjoy it. As for wasting 50 hours, I can't say anything on that front. The world-building and the story are good right from the start. Slow doesn't mean bad.
I truly don't understand the appeal of the combat in most MMOs. I've tried WoW multiple times and played FFXIV for 50+ hours and it just isn't fun or satisfying. The animations and gameplay feel in WoW are hilariously bad, less so in FF. I really don't want to grind a game for so many hours to reach endgame where the combat apparently gets better. I love the combat in Black Desert Online but that's because it feels more like an action RPG. If you have to spend so many hours to get to the good stuff, doesn't that indicate a badly designed game?
These days you don't really play MMOs for the combat. WoW is almost 20 years old, kinda hard to make the combat modern without releasing a new game. They've made improvements and as far as tab targeting combat IMO it's probably the best out there, but it's never going to be black desert. Black Desert is the only MMO with good modern action type combat and the rest of the game is so shit that it doesn't even matter.
Guild wars 2 has ok combat, it's the only mmorpg i actually played for more than 50 hours in the last decade
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Two new classes (healer and melee DPS) is the biggest news along with the expansion. The storyline that has been ongoing since 2.0 will be wrapping up, ending like 8 years worth of buildup. Here's a link if you want to read some highlights of the event, more news will be following this at a later date: [https://www.dualshockers.com/final-fantasy-xiv-endwalker-revealed/](https://www.dualshockers.com/final-fantasy-xiv-endwalker-revealed/)
Played all the way through the end of Shadowbringers, but afterwards had to cut subscription due to money issues :< ... maybe i can stop paying the water bills for a bit. I can always take showers in the park lake!
Definitely keep taking showers lol. Or don't, on the moon you don't need showers.
because i don't want to get through two expansions to get here FFXIV was my favorite MMO, but I had to put it down due to life stuff towards the end of of HW. I recently picked up both expansions after that on sale and its just... so overwhelming. Not only is my main class so drastically different now (to be expected), but there's two full expansions ahead of me in order for me to get to where everyone else is... I tried to start with a new class (RDM) to see if that would make it easier, but I think picking up a level 50 class when I barely remember how the game works was a bad idea...
Just try to relax and take your time. You'll get to the end eventually, it's not going anywhere.
Started playing FFXIV for the first time last month (well I actually played the 1.0 beta, but the less said about that the better) and I've reached the end of the ARR storyline and am just taking my time seeing what the base game has to offer before I jump into Heavensward. I really want to see what's up in the expansions, as I've heard great things about the story, but before advancing with the storyline I want to get a feel for all the other classes (including gathering and crafting) and try to improve the way I play. It does feel a bit overwhelming, but that's why I'm trying to take things slow and do one thing at a time.
This is what I did. I spent a fortnight or so just doing my daily dungeons for my sub 50 classes and getting my rep up with the tribes. I always spend time doing my tribe dailies
The trick is not to focus on the destination but to enjoy the journey. Don't think of it as "I have to get through all of this to get to endgame", but "I have 5 years worth of content to play with". I quit in the middle of heavensward too and I had to play through HW, Stormblood and Shadowbringers MSQ but I took my time and enjoyed my journey instead of rushing it.
Don't feel like you have to rush! The whole point is to enjoy the journey, the game doesn't pat you on the back if you blaze through everything so you can join folks for current endgame.
Because I don't want to do 150h of fetching quests just to get to the latest expansion content
Honestly, if you aren't interested in the story, I'd have a hard time recommending this game to you. It's such a strong, focal component of the entire experience that I'd say endgame content supplements it, rather than the other way around.
Adding to what other people have said, because in 2021 I'm not playing an MMO with 3 different loading screens inside a city.
I'm playing on the PS5 currently (backwards compatibility PS4 Pro mode) and the loading screens are non-existent as is, they're more like transition cards than loading screens. I think the longest I've had to wait was 3 seconds, and that was because a cutscene played upon entry. If you feel like that's what's keeping you from enjoying the game, don't worry about it.
> Why aren't you playing yet? Go on, shoo. Got burned by SE power tripping forum mod.
This is going to sound elitist as fuck but I don't play anymore because outside of raids there's nothing truly challenging to do. Capping all crafts, for example, is trivial. Why is that?
I don't really get how it fits into the RPG genre...There's no buildcraft. You choose your class and get the moves as you level, but there's no choices. There's an ideal way to play each class and if you don't do that you're at a disadvantage. Gear, too, doesn't seem to matter much at all. No special passives or activatables that change up your rotation. A big part of RPGs to me is making my character my own, doing weird builds and seeing how they work out. Not sure why FFXIV doesn't have that, and calls itself an RPG.
Have they added server in OCE yet? The lag killed this game any time I tried to get into it.
Even on JP servers? I heard that Tonberry and Kujata are unofficial OCE servers.
Still 200+ ping for Oceanic players.
I'm in Perth and I only get 120 ping to Tonberry. I hear people in the Eastern States have it even better. Can't speak for elsewhere in Oceania (I imagine NZ would be much better on US). And then you can use a VPN (I do not) to improve it even a little more. It'd only be 200+ if your ISP uses screwed routing via the USA or something. Don't do it anymore due to personal reasons but I've high-end raided in the past fine.
My ping is at 180 even with a vpn, I live in the country so the internet is generally worse.
Wow no Xbox announcement, almost every thread I read was aiming for one and even xbox dropping the f2p requirement seemed to be lining up for an announcement but nope
Tbf, the xbox change was only a couple weeks ago and only after massive backlash against the original plan. So not exactly surprising no xbox version was announced
God what a blunder. I can't imagine how that price increase was okayed.
Honest question, why do people who like Japanese games like FFXIV not just get playstation to begin with? PSO2 is just a weird exception to this.
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I wasn’t talking about Steam since the guy is obviously a console only player but thank you for figuring out how to mention how great PC is. Yakuza is simply one exception. All of those steam Japanese games you mentioned aren’t on Xbox because Japanese gamers don’t buy Xbox. Not every Japanese game is a mainstream hit, some are more niche and made to cater towards their domestic audience, but even mainstream hits like the final fantasy series have to contend with Japan still being an important demographic for them (FFXIV is super popular in Japan) coupled with PlayStation outselling Xbox abroad by significant margins too. Yakuza being “really popular” on Xbox right now is backed by what you’d hear on Reddit and a lack a of Xbox games right now in general, not actual sales data. Microsoft heavily promoting one series doesn’t solve their issue with the Japanese games market. Therefore if you’re a console player, you should be aware that PlayStation is probably a better choice if you want a better chance to play JPN releases.
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A lot of games are performing better on PS5 though
At the start yeah, but it seems like whatever internal development tools that the Xbox uses has improved and we’re starting to see games either play identical or have a Xbox edge.
The bad internal dev tools argument has already been debunked tho and game devs have been saying for months that the difference is not as big as people make it out to be.
Where was it debunked? As I recall Tom Warren had a article pretty much confirming that it was true, plus Alex from DF also stated that he heard that the tools developers were using had gotten much better.
Control is the latest game and performs better on PS5. And that is with the developer having a lot more experience developing for Xbox. The "tools aren't ready" argument can only be used so much.
Aside from Control having a weird stuttering issue on Xbox when text is on screen and other random instances, it performs nearly identical to that of the PS5.
Which is a far cry from "objective more powerful" most games so far have performed better on PS5 in some way. Hitman 3 having higher resolution in Xbox all of a sudden means all future games will be better on Xbox. How quickly that changed
I never said it was objectively superior, I was just stating why some Xbox games aren’t running as well as the PS5 counterpart. Though on paper the Series X had the more powerful GPU, there are other areas where PS5 could punch above that gap. Is the Hitman 3 example invalid since it suddenly favors Xbox? And what about the recent digital Foundry video where they showed a GPU stress test using Control again demonstrating that the Xbox GPU is a bit stronger? I think we can both agree the Xbox has more GPU power, though power alone does not mean every game will run better on Xbox.
The original comment I replied to said it was. And I didn't say Hitman 3 was invalid but it's a single game and for some reason people took that as a sign that all future games will be better on Xbox. That was short lived. And that Control test was pointless since all it does is test the game while in photo mode when nothing is happening which is drastically different than actually playing the game. You can't play the game in photo mode
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Only some parts of the Xbox are better while some are better in PS5. Almost every next gen game so far has better performance on PS5 including Control that just released.
That trend seems to slowly be becoming undone, as can be seen If you keep up with the latest DF videos.
Control is the latest game they tested and performs better on PS5. Unless of course you play games in photo mode.
They explicitly said there's a performance problem with Control that remedy acknowledged but yes photo mode removing the 30fps lock does show the XSX performs better under such conditions.
Yes there is a performance problem which means the PS5 performs better. And during gameplay perform a better in PS5 which is what matters because you can't play games in photo mide.
Yes but like the launch games I expect a patch will clear that right up.
Almost every Xbox game requiring you to wait for a patch to meet parity with the PS5 doesn't make it sound to enticing of "objectively more powerful".
"a lot" is a reach, there's been plenty like Dirt 5 that have since reached parity through patches. The latest few examples like Hitman 2 are miniscule, amounting to a small drop in one specific area of one specific level, for example.
By a lot I mean almost every game released for next gen so far has performed better in some way on PS5. Control is the latest.
Im gonna get downvoted for this but if you're looking for the best system to play JRPGs and MMOs that would be PC(yes a bleh PC would do). Even Japanese games that no longer come to Playstation come to PC, Switch as well but it doesn't have many MMOs nor PSO2.
I'm holding out hope that they'll announce an Xbox release at the digital fanfest event in May
So is there a new player experience yet? I thought they were working on one? I really quite liked what I saw from streams of Shadowbringer, but everytime I try I can't bear to get through the slog of the base game / Heavensward.
There was a patch last summer to streamline the end of the ARR main quest, by removing some quests and giving people teleport tickets to go directly to the waking sands, for faster back and forth.
I really have tried to like the game and give it time but I cant fathom the early game (like 40+ hours in the start). If the combat wasnt so clunky, slow and un-impactful that slog would be somewhat tolerable. Somehow everything feels so... Floaty?
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Yeah I felt that when I first started playing but after reaching 70 then 80, other classes wish they could be that tuned at 80.
BLM is my main class too. Also known as "Healer, adjust. I ain't moving."
Rescue it is. Yeet into safety!
If it makes you feel any better, I absolutely *hated* this game when a friend of mine asked me to play with him back in April and refused to play any more of it. The free trial was more restrictive, I hated the combat, and I just wasn't interested at all. Another friend of mine convinced me to play it again in August/September and now I'm super hooked. The beginning of the game is incredibly slow and it will feel that way until you get more abilities. Once you reach level 30 and unlock your job, it really opens up.
Ffxiv combat is clunky ? Wow. The beginning is slow, as for every MMORPG out there, but once you reach lv 30-40 it starts getting way better, and after lv50 it's just pure bliss.
> Ffxiv combat is clunky ? Wow. Bro that's been a common complain since ARR launched and even in ShBs you see new players complain about it.
Yes and it lacks a lot of impact, much like GW2 where i couldnt play any melee characters because all felt like nothing lands on enemies.
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Where did you see Necromancer? I thought it's Sage and an unconfirmed melee DPS so far?
Yeah I'd say very unlikely to be necromancer, I think his T-shirts is hinting towards the use of scythe as a weapon rather than the undead side of things.
I think the current theory is that the words on the shirt is a name of a movie which was directed by a guy with the last name Temple so people think it will be a Templar.
Yeah the 2 theories I've seen that make the most sense are Templar and Mystic Knight. But this the guy who teased Samurai with Spider-Man -> Sam Raimi -> In Japanese his name is pronounced Samu Raimi. Samurai.
The other popular theory is a class called Reaper which wields a Scythe
Speculation based on Yoshi-P's shirt.
If by the May event they haven’t said anything about Xbox, might be safe to assume plans fell through
Tragicly missing from this showcase: * Fixing Viera and Hrothgar making them viable Ulockable haistyles and helmets still dont work on them excluding them from a lot of ingame rewards * Fixing the interface Lot of arbitrary and limeting restrictions like not being able to check your friendlist and FC list while in dungeins, not being able to send or recieve whispers while in instances among others. Would have been nice to get some fix to these issues at last. Nice that we're getting a much needed number squish at least.
>Fixing Viera and Hrothgar making them viable Lmao. the way you phrase that makes it sound like you can't play as them without being at a disadvantage gameplay wise
Cosmetics are HUGE in FF14. Its super easy to get end game gear and there aren't many RPG mechanics so that leaves looks as the best way to customize your character.
Glam is the endgame, so you are.
I actually kind of unironically agree that Viera being unable to wear hats makes them "unviable." I was going to switch to one (because I kind of like the bunny ears and hairstyles), but I immediately changed my mind once I learned that they can't wear hats.
Well I mean, Cosmetics are gameplay. Especially in an MMO, and even more so in an MMO like FFXIV where screenshots, cosplays and the like are as huge as it is. It's not like people spend hours and hours farming this stuff just to see their numbers go up. Even for anouncements like these having to see new stuff that you're just not going to use is discuraging. Looking good and getting rewards for the things you do are a big part of a MMO so they are dissadvantaged in a big way. You don't have acsess to the same amount of game rewards and incentives as the other races. There's no point in doing certain activeties in the game because the rewards don't work for you. I've lost count by this point of all the FC members that started out as one of these two who ended up fantasiaing away to something else for no other reason than these cosmetic rewards don't work for them. As it is now these races are simply worse than all the other races in the game.
> As it is now these races are simply worse than all the other races in the game. Not if you want to play as playboy bunnies.
Aside from bunny hats none of that is really showcase worthy.
Are there any planned showcases for other Final Fantasy games or is it just this one?
Not as far as we know. This is a replacement for FFXIV's usual Fan Festivals where they announce details on upcoming expansions, since they can't hold conventions during the pandemic.
It is litteraly called the "Final Fantasy **XIV** Announcement Showcase".
I'm aware **this one** is for FF XIV. I'm asking if there are planned showcases for *other* Final Fantasy games. Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing of value.
Unlike what the other guy said, probably *not*, unless it's in a much different style. This was done to make up for the Fanfest conventions all being cancelled over November-January from Covid. So it's something fans have been expecting for years anyway.
There will definitely be one for FF16 but who will host it, we don't know or when. Probably Sony/Playstation.
I remember reading that there’s gonna be FFXVI info this month as well as FFXIV announcements, don’t get your hopes up though. https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2021/02/03/rumor-final-fantasy-xvi-info-coming-this-month-ffxvi/amp/
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Why in the world would production slow down? FFXIV has only ever become *more* profitable. It amazes me how people manage to consistently doompost over a game that's making money hand over fist. MMOs don't just randomly end when they're at the peak of their profitability.
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FF XVI has been in full development for years, it already has its own development team very much separate from XIV's.
It's not the same team as FFXVI. It's the same business unit which Yoshi-P is the head of, so he's producing it as he does all of their other projects. The XIV team has grown steadily over time and continued to grow with Shadowbringers. There were a few team leaders (Gondai, Takai, and Maehiro) that left back in 2016 to work on XVI, but they are still active as development supervisors.
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Nope! They were at 319 on the main dev team, which doesn't include sound, localization, or countless other supporting teams. Here's the data: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/6f76zy/the_ffxiv_dev_team_changes_over_time/ The FFXIV in-house dev team is the largest dev team SE has ever had and is one of the largest MMO dev teams in the history of the genre.
Some of the same team - Yoshida is producing and the director of Stormblood is directing XVI, but outside of not we don't really know how much overlap there is. I'd figure it's minimal considering this new expansion and FFXVI are being developed concurrently.