I think I've felt a similar kind of shift from the days when MMOs in general work more team-oriented but less endgame focused to today where it's easier to play solo but encouraging group finder mechanics. In the early days of WoW or FF11 for example, the player base was more of the typical gamer; the 14-19 yo male crowd. Today the fanbase for MMOs is much broader. In those days It was necessary to meet people in-game to form successful guilds or linkshells and rely on teamwork to do endgame stuff. Today you have younger and older players, players who just want to dress up like catgirls or whatever, it's less of a focus on grouping up to conquer a challenge and more of a themepark or choose-your-adventure book.
I played FF14 right when it was released, when it was still a mess, but already I could see hardcore players trying to team up to overcome things. A couple months ago I return to this game to see it much improved, but the playerbase not as fun to interact with. Also the game itself is easier than endgame vanilla WoW stuff and much, much easier than FF11 content. 40% of the people I see running around are a young female character in some skimpy outfit. That kills the immersion for me. Teleporting and raid finder also kill the immersion.
I still find leveling up fun, dungeons and crafting too, but it's a far cry from the early MMO days of us-against-the-world group up and try (and often fail) to take down the big bosses.
On May 04 2019 18:45 ShiaoPi wrote: I think you mean Gunbreaker? The new tank with the gunblade? You cannot unlock it yet. Prereqs will probably be level 60 and having purchased Shadowbringer
Yeah thats what I thought (I just re'quoted the name he said). I realize now it probably is a reference to FFTA rather than FF14. I don't know why I was confused.
oh man don't get me wrong, it was more interactive to talk to people before and after grouping up, but i don't miss having to shout for people and putting in the level of effort necessary every single time in order to weed out the liars. for getting shit done, i way like partyfinder more. for messing around and meeting cool people? having fun with no pressure? partyfinder is still fine for that. it's just that shouting around forced you into all steps.
there's now cross server and partyfinding which is fine. i just don't like the general populace of people playing high end content, and i play on one of the most populated servers.
what i truly miss is when the servers were not locked and you could match with japanese players for instance. i learned more from those players and found those groups way more interesting. i'd confidently say that was the most i'd ever learned playing the game--is with hitting those guys in random matchmaking.
i mean talking is always better. i don't want to join someone's mumble/discord/ts3 and the first thing you hear is about parses or really low social IQ stuff like, "oh you're a girl, i like your voice, you should talk more!" (i'm not even joking man, my friends get harassed unironically like this all the time when we play mmos) which has been the case for the most recent times.
Is anyone playing right now? I'm kinda deciding if I want to just wait until it goes on sale or until 5.1 or 5.2. I kinda think FFXIV expansions is really weak as a game until the 2nd big patch or so, at least historically speaking.
I'm only level 77 but this story so far is their best ever imo. And people are saying it gets even better as you reach the end. Really looking forward to completing the MSQ. I liked the SB/HW leveling dungeons a bit more, probably because as a healer I'm not fond of their healing changes, and find them less engaging to play. But even if they screw everything else up I'll always come back to this game to play through the story content.
Are the Heavensward and Stormblood quests better than the original 1-50 and 50+ quests? I rejoined a few months ago and finally up to the last few main quests (Steps of Faith)... it's taken forever, and I didn't really enjoy how much teleporting around and talking to people and skipping cutscenes there is. I want to do high level dungeons and level jobs. Don't get me wrong, the story is fine it's just too slow for my taste and I don't have time to burn.
Also if I make another character, is it possible to skip the story quests for that new character? I want to level some tanking/physical jobs but I don't want to tank as a Lalafell. I'd rather keep my Lalafell for magic jobs and maybe try Hrothgar out for tanking.
@TheFish7 ARR MSQ is pretty slow, drab, and nothing really happens until the end. I'd say the quest design was also kinda uninspired. It does however introduce you to the world, I suppose, although you get introduced to too many characters and not all of them remain fully relevant.
HW MSQ is very very good (side quests and such still have you walking around a lot but the writing is more detailed and polished). I reckon most of the good stuff you hear about ff14 really stems from the HW MSQ and how they pull off the old-fashioned "4 person party" feel with your character and NPCs.
SB MSQ ultimately feels like a giant filler, and frankly SHB MSQ blows SB out of the water so much it looks like 4.x was indeed just like two years of time bought for an epic expansion.
Adding to it all is the classes are constantly rebalanced with the highest level in mind. As an example, DRK level 60 was a fun class in HW, but the addition of a new mechanic in SB caused 1-69 to be baaaaaaaaaaad. Like really really bad. I hear the class was improved in SHB but that doesn't mean the 1-79 experience is going to be any better. I think earlier levels in ff14 are notoriously mediocre and so the slow burn of ARR doesn't help matters any.
As for your other question, unless you whip out the $$$ to skip, you're out of the luck I think...
I still enjoyed SB, even though it was a pretty different direction to take the story, focusing on military and political drama more so than the high fantasy of HW and SHB. But yea, I would rank it below both of the latter.
Also Fish, one of the best things about the game is being able to play all jobs on one character. I'd suggest you focus on making just one that you really like rather than restarting the game because you want a different character for a different role. Especially if you don't have time to burn.
Finished the main story quests for Shadowbringers. They really outdid themselves, my goodness. Not just the writing, but the production quality was through the roof, especially for the final confrontation. Just incredible to see. I don't know how they're gonna top this. Reddit seems to agree.
finished MSQ yesterday and they totally blew every other content out of the water with it. It's insane how much the storytelling, environment design, music and battle design has improved.
Man I had low expectations since the end of Stormblood felt weak to me but after the level 71 dungeon I got hooked entirely.
Getting into the new expansion over the weekend. It starts out incredibly slow, but I've recruited Alphinaud and Alisae, so I'm at the part where its getting interesting.
I didn't think the level 71 dungeon was impressive. It was just a corridor. I was impressed with the AI.
This recent Blizzard news has made me reflect a bit on the XIV team and how lucky Square-Enix is to have them.
Fans like to know that the developers care about them. When I see stuff like YoshiP getting choked up and crying because the shaky FFXIV launch inconvenienced the players (the crowd encouragement is wholesome af), or the lead writer getting teary over some praise from the audience, It makes me feel good to know and see how much they personally care about the game and the reception it gets. I hope SE's biggest fuckups continue to be mismanaging their games *Nomurrraaaaaaaaa*, cause this blatant profits > people approach I've seen out of Blizzard is just disheartening to the fans. No one wants to see them turn into another EA.
This isn't intended to be another Blizzard discussion, there are enough of those already, just praising the XIV team for being personable in these times.
On October 11 2019 10:31 Tachion wrote: This recent Blizzard news has made me reflect a bit on the XIV team and how lucky Square-Enix is to have them.
Fans like to know that the developers care about them. When I see stuff like YoshiP getting choked up and crying because the shaky FFXIV launch inconvenienced the players (the crowd encouragement is wholesome af), or the lead writer getting teary over some praise from the audience, It makes me feel good to know and see how much they personally care about the game and the reception it gets. I hope SE's biggest fuckups continue to be mismanaging their games *Nomurrraaaaaaaaa*, cause this blatant profits > people approach I've seen out of Blizzard is just disheartening to the fans. No one wants to see them turn into another EA.
This isn't intended to be another Blizzard discussion, there are enough of those already, just praising the XIV team for being personable in these times.
I feel the opposite. I think Square has done waaaay more greedy shit than Blizzard ever has. Constantly re-releasing and porting games, doing absolutely 0 improvements on ports that have technical problems on PC, they have like 30 f2p mobile titles, most of which gets shuttered a year in, FFXIV having so much stuff locked behind physical merch, including 200 dollar statues and 50 dollar OSTs and mog station (Blizzard does this kinda stuff with Blizzcon rewards + Collectors edition but FFXIV dials it up to 11)
As someone who primarily plays PvP the removal of 24man frontlines is a very big oof. I can't wrap my head around why they would remove a pvp mode. For what purpose? If only 72man is available then the queues won't pop during off hours.
So I picked the game up a few weeks ago after almost a decade hiatus. Had to buy it again because the old account was shuttered and SE couldn't (wouldn't) help get it reactivated. I'm playin Famfrit as arcanist which is dope. Graphics and everything is still superb imo. Just the grind. Man. I do not miss this.
EPT
