Final Fantasy XIV Online | jiggles, Seven and rinks have all returned to Eorzea

[Met]

I think the Steam version had its highest player count ever, even more than expansion launches, the other day. WoW being on fire, and multiple WoW streamers (including Asmongold) getting in and legitimately enjoying their time with it is doing great for this game.

[Pattybean]

It's great to see how many folk have got into the game recently. I was really into this on PS4 but I haven't played for about two years now. As per my last post here, I found the environments and exploration to be amazing but I struggled so much with battling - I never really understood how things worked or what I had to do. Most online folk were very friendly but, alas, I had a couple of experiences during battling when players were text chatting about kicking me out, and that wasn't very nice.

But still... amazing game!

Yeah I totally agree. The game play is fab, the world is lovely especially since I was already a fan of FFXII Zodiac Age which this feels very similar too. I was quite surprised to see the little blocks of world broken up by dotted lines but I actually like it. Go to a area have fun exploring do the crafting/gathering. I am just having fun at my own pace which I feel fits my family/gaming balance very nicely. And again the job swapping system is first class. LOVE IT. Jawa if you dig 76 as much as you do I think you should give this another shot if you have room in your life for two time sinks. And you can make your own home! I believe with shops and stuff I think thats what the icons meant in the housing instance.

[jawaX]

...I think you should give this another shot if you have room in your life for two time sinks. And you can make your own home! I believe with shops and stuff I think thats what the icons meant in the housing instance.

Yeah, Patty, when I played before I joined a clan/company who were high-level players and they had this amazing house!

I like the idea of returning to the game but I'm not sure if my head can handle the re-learning; I'd start fresh to work through all the tutorials again.

Sounds good but I keep saying I'm gonna return to so many games; Souls, No Man's Sky, FFXIV... and then I just play F76. Will need to have a proper think about this!

[The Doom Spoon]

I'm thinking about jumping into this game. I've always been a WoW guy, and my mate recently made the hop over to FF14 and he said it's literally everything WoW should've been! He's really enjoying it, and the fact it's free until lvl 60 as well!

So yea I may give this a download soon and hop on!

[Met]

Now's probably the best time. You have something like 135 days before the expansion drops, and we're not getting anything new, so that's aaaall catch up. Also the game's in a new player influx so early areas and dungeons are especially full right now.

[Hexx]

I'm thinking about jumping into this game. I've always been a WoW guy, and my mate recently made the hop over to FF14 and he said it's literally everything WoW should've been! He's really enjoying it, and the fact it's free until lvl 60 as well!

So yea I may give this a download soon and hop on!

That bodes really well. I haven't done the redone early stuff yet but the first expac, Heavensward, is amazing and he won't be there. It's where the game completely clicked for me.

FFXIV also tells a much better story. You could realistically treat it as an SP story (the recent expac Shadowbringers won all sorts of awards). It kinda of "glosses" over who every other player else is in the story...apart from...well..get to it and see). YOU are the Protagonist. YOU are the Warrior of Light. You have the relationships with key characters.

WoW tried to pivot to that recently from you being one of many heros to you being special/the champion (since WoD/Legion) and it really doesn't work as well.

All told with "proper" cutscenes as well - it wraps you so much in the world/story. (This is a cutscene from level 60ish so I've spoiled it if you want to be pure. I don't think you'll understand enough to spoil story - but I'm trying to show how YOU being in the story makes such a difference)

Also RED MAGES FOR LIFE!

[Finiarél]

Yeah like a few others, tempted to give this a whirl. There's a 30 day trial with a purchase right?

[Met]

Yeah like a few others, tempted to give this a whirl. There's a 30 day trial with a purchase right?

If you mean the free 30day sub, then yeah. From the product page:

"Customers who purchase either the starter edition or the complete edition will be granted a 30-day free play period. If you wish to continue playing after this period, you must subscribe to the game."

[Pattybean]

Quick question, I am currently level 20 and want to know is there any point in upgrading to the paid version now? Or am I better off just waiting till I have completed all the free content?

[Met]

There are a few benefits to the paid version, like being able to join Free Companies (player guilds with benefits like extended food duration, bonus experience, reduced teleport rates etc), the ability to form parties outside of dungeons, and the ability to use the market board, iirc.

Overall they're pretty minor.

I think you'll have to get the expansion if you want to use the new jobs that start at level 50 and 60 in the starting areas, but you need another class that high to swap over anyway. And you can get the level 30 jobs in the Heavensward area in the free trial.

[jiggles]

I wouldn’t say the bonus EXP is minor

[Met]

On your first job it is, the MSQ easily keeps you up to speed nowadays and once you hit 50 you have the patch cycles to give you a head start on anything after that'll never run out.

Also the live letter was this morning. They dropped the benchmark trailer, and the actual benchmark itself will be out on Sunday. Everything in there is nonsense with no context, just to see if big number computer go, but there will still be enemy design and location spoilers if you're worried about that. That said, it's the closest we're getting to a job action showcase for like 2 months.



Bunbois soon...I can almost taste them.

[jawaX]

I've recently been watching Jazzem stream some FF XIV play and it has, after a two-year break, reignited my interest in the game. I thought I'd take a look.

But... it seems that the game has got so popular recently that the servers can't cope! I just checked and, on the European servers, it appears that you can't create a new character on any of the worlds . I've Googled this for more info and discovered that SquareEnix has even halted digital sales of the game at various times recently.

Dang. Guess I'll have to wait until they add capacity to their servers.

[Met]

I had a 750 person queue to log in this evening. It took half an hour. Yesterday it was almost 1000 and people missed raid because of it. Usually there's only like 30 people in the queue and it takes less than a minute.

Yoshi said they're dumping money into new servers, but they won't be ready until after EW drops. He mentioned in the recent LL that they had 180% more preorders for EW than they did for ShB, and that was what the server expansion was for, but they weren't expecting this explosive growth they've seen recently.

The Bancho census came out this morning, too, and shows something like a 250k active player increase over 2 months ago iirc. But this only counts people over level 60 to filter out free accounts and the like, so the actual numbers must be absolutely insane when the trials and new players who haven't caught up yet are factored in.

People joke about Squenix advertising Endwalker with the moon wobble. The real big brain meme is the servers burning down to advertise Endwalker. "The fabric of our star began to fray" indeed.

[jawaX]

...Yoshi said they're dumping money into new servers, but they won't be ready until after EW drops...

Oh, man, that's November, isn't it? Looks like I'll have a bit of a wait until I play this again, then!

[Cheeky Devlin]

...Yoshi said they're dumping money into new servers, but they won't be ready until after EW drops...

Oh, man, that's November, isn't it? Looks like I'll have a bit of a wait until I play this again, then!

Can't you just pick up your existing character?

The game is easy enough to pick up without having to go through all those endless early quests again.

[jawaX]

Can't you just pick up your existing character?

The game is easy enough to pick up without having to go through all those endless early quests again.

I enjoyed Ffxiv but really struggled with taking in everything and all the controls and functions... it's pretty hectic. I'd like to start out fresh to learn all the basics again!

[andretmzt]

I've been tempted to give this a go recently. What's the pacing of the game like? I gave WoW Classic a bash a couple of months back and was reminded why I dropped it originally; just a little slow for my taste.

[Met]

It takes a little while to get going in ARR. They've trimmed a lot of the chaff, but that doesn't change that ARR is mostly all set up and world building with pretty barebones payoffs.

But from what I've heard from Asmongold and RichWCampbell, it's still more engaging that WoW is. Don't have any personal experience there, so can only go off their recent streams, though.

But once you hit *that* part in ARR, then it's pretty much just on all the way.

If you really want you can buy a story skip to Heavensward and just get a quick summary, but I'd advise against it. Not only is it paying £8 to play less game, but that set up is pretty vital for multiple character arcs, and still has payoffs as late as the current patch. I also think you only get the story, not a level skip, so you'll still have to grind up to 50 yourself. But the option is there.

[jawaX]

twitter.com/jawafour/status/1417461193640394770

The servers are back up following the update and I've been able to create a new character on my PS4 in readiness for a fresh start. It feels daunting to step back into the game... but here I go!