To add a little context to the Banquet Quest. When the game was still in 2.0-2.5, Titan was actually considered one of the hardest boss, especially in Expert, since falling off the platform actually permanently knocks out a player from the duty (your body disappears completely so you can't revive unless the party wiped). The quests that lead up to Titan was actually made to give players hints on Titan's mechanics. The Company of Heroes were actually "secretly training" the hero to beat Titan by sending them on these quests. - Though not one of them, the fake Company of Hero NPC who is mostly a comical relief, (Trachtoum/"Tidus-slayer guy") uses line AOE and small bombs AOE akin to Titan's Rockslide to push and attack the player. - The lancer COH NPC (Landenel) introduce you to the southern area of the forest and sends you to kill an Adamantoise who does big circular AOE around itself similar to quite some of Titan's circular AOE around himself. - The miqote COH NPC (U'odh Nunh) introduce you to the southern area of the desert, and gives you a top and bottom armor pieces, as well as gloves for your effort, which helps build your stats to fight Titan. - The goblin COH NPC (Brayflox Alltalks) is not only world building to show you there are lots more "friendly" demihumans NPCs, but also gives you the boots required for more item level, as well as unlocked the dungeon which not only is good for grinding level, but also allows you to grind for your weapon and other better green armor pieces if required, to fight Titan. - The blind lalafell COH NPC (Shamani Lohmani) is literally mostly for world building and introduce you to the west part of Costa Del Sol and also lore about defected Garleans that SE prepped for future content. He is the only one that is kind of "useless" out of the 5 COH NPCs, other than for world building, but also has one of the longer quest where you have to do so many random delivery and definitely should have his quest line cut down more. The thing that a lot of players missed if they don't really understand the lore of Titan or watched 1.0 cutscenes on RUclips however, is that Titan unlike the other primals (Ifrit and Garuda in ARR 2.0 story), is actually "peaceful". He is literally the Crag Farther and his only goal is to protect his children (who were oppressed by the Lomisians) and thus him and his children doesn't have any urgency to invade the "overdwellers" and are mostly content staying below the earth. The COH knows that and thus doesn't have that urgency to send you to fight Titan, and instead opted to "train" you and prepare you for the fight instead. Of course, they also can't allow Titan to live uninterrupted as not only does Titan drains the land of aether which will ruin the land, the Kobold might turn aggressive in the future if left uncontrolled, and have their land drained of aether. Thus they still sent you to fight Titan in the end. Its stupid details that can basically be skipped now that they shorten the questline and made all the bosses much easier and stuff, but SE for some strange reason chose to retain all of them for world-building purposes and I definitely agree that it will bore the hell out of any new players who were trying to rush to the late game to play with friends or see the "good part" of the story. From my understanding, the Banquet and the Corrupted Aether Crystal quests are 2 places where most people quits FFXIV, and when they got past The Garuda fight, is where most people stay on for good.
Your comment just emphasize the care the DEVs took to develop the game and as a new player who thought: "I gotta save the world from a fucking giant Titan Primal, why am I delivering you cheese?", this makes a lot of sense as an MMO player, I understand the preps for the final content and the grinding involved. Now I just regret I havent played the game earlier.
Honestly, best way to enjoy FFXIV is to just take your time. Yes, Dawntrail is coming out soon, but there really won't be any enjoyment out of it if you rush yourself into it. If anything, you'll burn yourself out. Take your time with the story and explore. You'll enjoy the game so much more that way and won't become overwhelm with missing context towards the end. I've had a few friends that paid to skip the content just to play through the Shadowbringers expansion when it was first released and they've all quit after 2 weeks mostly due to being unable to understand anything that was going on. I also quit the game around that time as well, but after coming back on a new character and taking my time to play the story from the very beginning, I wanted to go back and slap myself for even skipping a huge portion of it on my first run. So yeah, don't rush and take your time with it. The game won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
But that is exactly why myself, and others, get bored and fall off. "Take it slow. Take years to play through. It isn't going anywhere. Do a quest or two here and there and smell the flowers." Like, that isn't my play style, nor a lot of people's play styles. I want to play at a reasonably good clip and enjoy it while having a fun, engaging story. It's just one of those games where people are like, "Oh the game is amazing once you get past the tutorial" only this game is like 100 hours of tutorial. It's just really rough to enjoy, especially when people are literally telling others to extend those hours out by taking their time. If ARR is boring to people, I'm not sure how extending ARR longer will help.
@@drudle ARR is roughly 120-ish hours, Heavensward is 110 hours, Stormblood is 120, Shadowbringers is 115, and Endwalker is 90 hours (at base) 130ish at 6.55. Endgame in XIV is pretty much 8 weeks. Savage Raiding is 8-12 weeks before echo comes out at the .25 patches. The cycle of patch content used to be 3 months is now 4 months. You are honestly not missing much at end game. There's no player power, no grinding and no real time sink. At max level, you log in for 5 days @ 30 minutes. You're capped for end game currency. If you raid you're now depending 2-3 days at average of 2 hours. So at end game your typical midcore average player is interacting with on current content roughly 8 hours and 30 minutes a week.
@@drudle I feel this but the opposite hand is to jump into a game you dont get much emotional investment in. there IS the option to pay for skips and its essentially the idea of paying for part of a book collection or a whole collection you can back track to at any time. THe current system is a flawed method to apporach to new players IF you see it as such while many many ff14 players would rather quit the game than ever have the stories weve all been through become skipable. ALSO...im gonna be real it at most takes a year to get through the games story (i was taking forever when i firs joined stormblood) it totally valid why people fall off but in the end THIS is a massive reason 14 lived where other MMOS died. Being diferent in ways that cattered to a more selective playerbase than just trying to be another wow.
It's tricky because I don't think the answer is letting new players start in any expansion because the main reason the expansions are so praised is because they build off of the set up, if you started in Shadowbringers, even the scenery is spoilers that would badly diminish the story beats that made the expansion so loved. I think they need to overhaul the quests in ARR and lower the levels skills are learned so new pkayers can get to the interesting, important stuff without things like the fetch quests and other fluff that makes it tedious. It's tricky because GW2(I don't play WoW so no comment) has a lot of issues with it's story and it doesn't hit in the same way, FF14 heavily relies on you playing in a specific order so they would almost have to rewrite ARR to make the pace better to fix it, there's not really a way around it since skipping will kill what makes the rest work so well.
you are right, there is no "one shoe fits all" to solve this. i'm no game developer, but i feel like there can be steps made to make FF14 easier for new players to experience and at the end of the day, enjoy all together.
Would recommend someone to start watching Game of Thrones at it's final season? That's essentially what you're recommending for FF14. This is a story focused game, trying to avoid it or skip around it robs you of the experience you came here for.
It helps immensely with the msq grind if you dont have your eyes set on the expansions, and just take the story for what is in front of you at the current moment. Dont be in a rush to get places. I agree, there are definitely some snoozers for quest dialogue. But I also think that helps you appreciate the expansions more when you finally get to them. The game is old, and its age definitely shows in more ways than just its graphics. But it also has a nostalgic factor to it because of this, it can remind you of a different era of gaming.
I disagree. I have done all off ARR and got my relic weapon, along with doing all the side quest and other things before moving to the next content when I first started playing. even read all the side quest stories. ARR is still 1000000% the worse part of the game. the ONLY thing I think it does better is how people spoke. in ARR people had their own dialect more and felt like different part of the worlds are different. now a days everyone just has perfect English 99.9% of the time and that's a bit less fun to me. I fully believe they need to redo all of ARR(tbh they need to re voice the first Expac too). up to date voice acting with a better flow. a good 40/60% of ARR content is not world building it's just bullshit. there is a reason why new content has cut down on side quest because this isnt the 2000s anymore. we don't need 50 quest that offer no real rewards with a worthless story. don't get me wrong there are good stories in ARR but your nostalgia is most likely blocking out the Mount Everest worth of useless outdated quest that is just hey stranger go get me a 15 toad feet for my dinner. k thanks bye the end. all I am saying is if BDO a lot smaller MMO who has huge expansions with voice acting can redo all their OG story line with voice acting and smoothing out the flow for new players there is no valid reason of the the top 3 biggest MMOs in the world can't
this always this., ff14 really is a marathon not a sprint and thats why its done so well over the years since so many mmos tried and still try to make you rush to the end.
but that's the issue. you cannot experience the later expansions without experiencing through the worldbuilding that was ARR. the later expansions would not have the same impact if you didn't play through ARR. you mentioned reading books - skipping ARR is like picking up a book but only start reading like halfway through.
agreed, i like the point you made about starting a book halfway through but as @Novarics stated, some players just want to roam into different environments. locking story experiences to avoid spoilers for players makes sense, but i just feel like FF14 could expand they player base if they made things easier.
@moopliss whilst I can see where your coming from, I think the issue is if it was skippable / going through the story was less efficient then alot of people that would otherwise be engaged in the story would not watch or get involved in it because its not considered efficient. Been shown that players care more about efficiency then having fun which whilst I agree in ARR it's hard to see that. The later expansions incredible story would be ignored my most because of it being less efficient.
@@BeanSandwiches I just dont understand this obsession with making people engaged with the story. I have more fun and enjoyment in the game than tons of people who love the story whereas I don't know much about it since I didn't care for it. I don't think knowing the story is remotely required or necessary for ffxiv to be very enjoyable and while it is a major part of the game, it should not be forced down peoples throats that don't want it. I dont know ANYONE that quit ffxiv because they dont know the lore of the boss they are fighting, BUT i do know people that quit the game because they are tired of the amount of msq questing that does not interest them. The story being as long as it is, should be an option. It can even be a heavily encouraged one, BUT it should not be a requirement the way it is now.
@Novarics I think it's because the story is specifically the main part that differentiates ff14 and makes it unique / is shy ao many people play it. If the story could be skipped it wouldn't be important, and overall less people would play
Honestly, something huge would be completely revamping every class/job so that their lv1-50 kits feel more satisfying and then maybe increasing the spawn rate of the FATEs along the routes you'd take for the MSQ. That way you can still use your new skills if you're feeling bored but can still beeline through the story if you'd rather. I don't think there's that much fat they could trim from ARR (still some, for sure) so focusing on that would go a long way, I think.
I feel that the entire base toolkit must be available at level 50. Leveling up can then unlock traits that will improve upon your existing toolkit and add new mechanics. Each 10 levels can then add another ability to use.
If you got more of the toolkit in 1-50 then what do you give the players at later levels? Keep in mind revamping the entire toolkit of each job would require revamping the entire 1-50 experience because having more abilities means a stronger character. You would just steamroll everything. Not to mention some dungeons and bosses were designed based around the abilities jobs have at that level. They would have to redesign so much content just to give each job a few extra abilities. It doesn't really seem worth it to be honest.
1000% agreed. The clunky combat and incomplete job kits of the 1-50 duties doesn't only affect people still doing ARR. Because there are just SO MANY of them, leveling roulettes have a good chance of still plopping you into an ARR duty until you're VERY far into the game. Seriously it takes till like Shadowbringers (third expansion) for the chance of an ARR dungeon in leveling roulette to dip below 50%. A low-level combat rebalance would indeed be a ton of work but it's probably worth it imo. The people I've introduced to FFXIV almost all stop playing in the ARR stretch and two factors are always cited: the slow pace of the story, and the combat feeling sluggish and boring. It's a darn shame because the combat really does start to flourish at later levels. But it's a hard sell to go "yeah but the combat gets really good 200 hours in". That's not a reasonable ask, even saying it makes you sound like a freakin cultist.
I don't understand this mentality of "where all your friends are". All your friends are in Limsa. Everyone is in Limsa. lol No but srsly, ppl who've finished the MSQ are still in the base zones due to the content being evergreen and there still being things to do everywhere. (Or cus they afk in Limsa.) You might find the questing itself hit or miss, and that's fine, but you're not missing anything by taking the time to complete the msq while others are ahead of you.
Tbh it really depends who you are, what kind of content you do and how dedicated you are to side stuff/ social stuff. Because not everyone is in the main zones. When i first started the game yeah my friends would help me along with msq content but then they would do side things. Like grind mounts, fates for bicolor gemstones, and even do bozja as well as eureka. Hell people go clubbing to teleport to the shirogane housing area, you need someone on your friend list to estate teleport. If you are social with this game and you are new its really unavoidable that there will be times where you just feel left out. Of course now im caught up and ive done nearly everything in the game so im just doing deep dungeon stuff and playing other games while i wait. And even then i wanted to take a friends into heaven on high but one of my friends just wasnt there to unlock it so we just did potd instead so he wouldnt feel left out.
I think it’s more of the fact that as games like final fantasy 14 the amount of quest you have to complete rises just to catch up it’s a good mmo but there’s a lot you have to get through to get there to the interesting parts
This is something you can actually do in FF11. You can just... START anywhere you want! I advise going in order... but... yeah the freedom is still there!
@@SnuubScadoob While true, FFXI also has probably the single worst onboarding in any currently running game on the entire market. Speaking from experience there.
The difference of ARR is when you did it. If you did the game as it launched back in 2.0 then it isn't As BAD as a memory because you did them as each patch came out and had to wait a while for the new stuff to pop in. This story was also purposely made longer because of the world building and establishing concepts, ideas and characters that will come back later in the narrative or in sidequests. like a good 1/3rd of the game's content is it's story. And it's a double edge sword. It's like wanting to read Harry Potter because everyone is hyped for the Half-Blood Prince to come out, but you had to slog through Phiolsopher's Stone and Chamber of secrets before anything really takes off kind of feeling. AS a fan it hurts to hear it and i can make reasoning why the Company of heroes in the titan quest make you go through that as a test of measure and preparation because Titan up to this point was much stronger than Ifrit you fought before... But not everyone can invest in the MSQ as others. It's the true challenge to get new players to get through it and enjoy it when most of the quests are building up for the future... Edit: I hope people don't take offense of your legit frustration with ARR MSQ as not everyone can jive with it and as a community there will be some players who will try and deny it because "You just don't get it" in the face of negativity towards it's story.
I think most players understand his frustration. ARR is not easy to get through. You will understand it and appreciate it if you stick with the game...but...after Endwalker😅 I just hope he gets that far
i started playing the game 3 years ago and to get to endwalker from ARR it was almost 1 year of playing the ga me everyday dont rush the game game the content will always be there enjoy all aspects of the game i still am working on leveling up my jobs which after 3 years worth of game play is 80% done the thing is to play at a pace which you find fun to do looking forward to seeing your take on the game
The way I introduce ARR to new players is basically that you start out as a complete nobody, and you work your way up, earning your respect by doing the little things as you do. By the time you complete the base game, you are a well respected warrior and in many ways a hero to specific nations. Then when you get to the expansions you will get to do more and more insane stuff that go beyond just being a hero among many, making you stand out as something truly unique and respected, pushing the limits of what a "human" could conceivably do.
Imagine watching Return of the King, then Fellowship of the Ring, then The Hobbit, then Two Towers. Final Fantasy XIV is a series of books with a story told in sequence. The entire 10 year saga is a single cohesive story which each chapter building on the previous (or reaching back 2-3 chapters to draw upon something seemingly inconsequential). It's a very different experience from WoW or GW2, but it's a design that will make the game as approachable and the story maintain the same emotional impact 20 years from now as it did on the day of an expansion's release. Going into it with the mentality of racing to the end for endgame content with friends is the wrong mentality. This game is not about the endgame, but the journey. No other MMO has impacted players at the darkest point in their lives quite like FFXIV, particularly Shadowbringers and Endwalker, making you ask legitimate questions about your own life's journey and what your purpose is, what your means of happiness is, and if it's all worth it. The vast vast majority of FFXIV players don't want you to join them at endgame. They want to join YOU during key points in the story. They want to be there with you when you get to specific story moments to face a boss. They want to hear how you feel as you journey through the same story they did. You can't have that shared community when you eliminate all sense of a shared experience. WoW never asked you to confront yourselves with these questions, but even FFXIV's doing so wouldn't hit the mark without first taking you on a journey.
How can you expect to understand whats going on in a continuous story if you jump to the end? The game is journey, the journey is the story. Everything is unlocked through the story and everything is connected to the story. This game isn't about combat and a lot of the time, combat is a last resort because this game is a living breathing world, not closed off expac after closed off expac like WoW. And 50% of ARR isn't an accomplishment, you basically played less than 10% of the game's story. There's so much you don't know yet because they've only given you some of the basic groundwork for the story. Beating ARR is more of an accomplishment because you at least have an understanding of how the game works on a fundamental level by then.
I started with a trial account, fell in love with the game, purchased it knowing that I would have to pay a sub. It was such a freshing change from WoW which I had played since vanilla. Yes, I agree there are some annoying parts ( but that is true of ALL the games I have played) but all in all its worth the occasional annoyance. I lost my sprout icon ( "cries") quite a while ago and have several jobs maxxed at this point and am looking forward to Dawntrail! You really need the base story for the rest to make sense. My advice is not to skip content as it important to the story. The journey is well worth the rewards!
like many might have said... the ARR the world building. For an example, in the hideout, those characters do come back and do live... they tell something different each time you go back. There is part that you might have missed when you did the 3 cities dungeons. There was an adventurer groups in the background and even one of them said that you are an inspiration for her. She will come back :) But, yup, the game is pretty good to close a lot of the loops they started.
It's true, but the problem is, most players who experienced that took their time to look through cause the game was new. However, with people trying to catch up with friends or to the latest expansion, there will be people who skip the background characters, and a lot of the world building are just really dry jokes that most people will never appreciate. His video is a good example. The whole banquet questline is dumb. He could have said he wishes to test you and want you to prove yourself, and add a spin to the quest to make it more epic... and not "go do this grocery shopping cause we wanted to host a party for this important person coming (surprise, its you and your companion!)" and then send you all over the world to a bunch of important Company of Heroes NPCs just for them to tell you to do minor chores for them and not even something that really tests you. It's poor legacy story writing that is meant as filler content that SE should remove for new players or at least change some of the wording. Getting the cheese is fine since it has a good dungeon to it and goblins are meant as a funny race in the first place, but the other 3 fetch quests should be re-done to make it more interesting. You shouldn't tell new players to sit through a daily grocery chore list just to see something that will only become important 4 expansion later.
@@ArieysValentine it's a complicated balance. The only way ARR can work now, for players who just want to meet their friends, is rework it entirely. It's old school and most people have no patience for it. In other MMO's you just skip old content, you can't do that in XIV because the way story is told so they have but one choice. Or lose potential players who aren't exactly keen to go through a 10 years old game
@@sophiastorm8616it not just arr,im in stormblood and im still doing this same fetch quest grocery list stuff.the story is so overrated.its doesn't do anything and its this plot is the same as multiple ff games.i played ff16 and couldn't help but think,this is the same plot as ff14
@@holy9781 Opinions are just that, but I can tell you this much. The story in XIV has nothing to do with XVI. The MSQ in STB is also full of fetch quests? It is, less than ARR but still a lot of those. You'll have less and less of those as you progress through the next expansions. Last but not the least, the overrated story, I can't tell you much, you're in STB, so, half way through the story and you really have little idea of what exactly the story is about. No idea if you are an FF player, but if you are, you should know exactly how FF stories work and progress. In STB, you're pretty much like Jon Snow....you know nothing. And again, so no doubt about it stays in your mind: There are no similarities whatsoever, at all, between XIV and XVI stories, none. Not the themes, not the world, not the character types and archetypes, not their story arcs. The scope, the politics, the structure even. Absolutely nothing. They both have chocobos...
@@sophiastorm8616Did you like the story tho? I played though ARR and thought it was alrigghtt. Some cooler parts but mostly alright sometimes boring story but i have a lot of hope for the expansions. plus the music is crazy good
For me the main problem is the age and size of the game. I can’t play much every day and I have the feeling that all the players are far ahead and I will never be able to catch up with them in order to be with everyone in the latest content.
I think you’re misunderstanding the game. One of the reasons that the later expansions are so good is because they’re laying down the groundwork now, introducing characters and communities along with the conflicts that drive them. Then you get to see your characters impact on that world over time.
The base story the first time you play through feels awesome at least for me, but after it's not nearly as fun the second time but it goes faster than any other expansion! The dungeons to me are quite boring and would rather not have to do them, it's one reason I avoid dungeon roulette etc. as I can't be arsed to bother with them.
About the "skipping expansions" point: currently, it's a service you pay for(separately from job level boosts), but the devs are actually looking into making it free and available from character Creation. It will also skip the story, but you won't have to worry about them much thanks to the New Game Plus feature(Maybe people from your streams already talked about it?) Also, there's a bit of a difference(perhaps dissonance in some POVs) in how you enter new zones in FFXIV compared to other MMOs. Because your access to zones is tied to the story(you can actually already go to some of them without having to unlock them but you don't really have any incentives to yet), it permits other liberties, like starting next expansion(Heavensward) you get a little cutscene each time you go to a new zone where your character walks in(with their current companions) and the camera does different shots and pans while a narrator describes things and the BGM starts. It's the same thing as when you enter an instance but with a bit more to it. It's more similar to how single-player RPGs or other stort-heavy games do it than MMOs in that respect(I've seen in some zones Star Wars:the Old Republic does it too). Hope that helps!
An interesting hurdle for FF14 coming up is selling new players on a game with 100 levels and multiple story arcs that can be the length of a whole netflix series binge. And story skips aren't that attractive generally, spending money to get to the far end of a game you may not even know you like, with soon 3 expansions that also need to be purchased on alongside. I feel like the devs are kicking the can down the road for now on making the game accessible despite its own towering size. See how the game does or doesn't grow for Dawntrail, before seeing if its a priority issue for the next one. But the game really is a sandtrap for levels 1-50. Max level players end up in the really low level dungeons all the time via the roulette dungeon run system. Its just where a lot of players are kinda stuck milling about. And as much as the fans love the optimistic spin of how (with a sub) there is hundreds of hours of things to chase in the base subscription, we still need a good population of max levels players. I'm sure the devs appreciate sprout-chan, who stopped the MSQ at level 33 to go spend 2 months working on their fishing log and grind out outfits in the golden saucer, for their sub. But they need people to sell these expansions too.
I think the issue is that people compare it to other mmos where the only worthwhile content is max level. So seeing that would be extremely daunting. But alot of the best content in the game is the progression, not the end goal
@@BeanSandwiches This is the issue right here. Most MMOs the grind is the content and the content is the grind. So endgame is just all grind all for a few points of extra power to get the perfect rolled item. Then you come to XIV....and the grind is not there at end game. That's always been the complaint I've heard from skippers that there's no real reason to do the savage fights again once you get all your best in slot pieces. I mean what did they expect WoW or BDO types of grinding...FFXIV is a Story first game and the story serves the content.
@@grygaming5519 couldnt agree more with thisl its is a valid ciriticsm that ff14 doesnt cater to the old school way of mmo thinking BUT its one that id never ever want to see be drasticly changed. thjis game held me from jump even during the weaker story parts of evben stormblood because i had stuff to do and story to explore and love the world. Endgame came later
Allowing players to start any expansion would kill the game. Half the characters and concepts throughout the expansions would make zero sense to new players. ARR sets the base for who people are etc. The true fun doesn't really start until post ARR however, and I agree that some of the 'delivery' style quests are very boring though. There's characters from ARR in many expansions into the future. The problem with WoW is it's aggressively dying player base and a money hungry developer, combined with an impatient community that want to 'world first' and get through content as quick as possible. I can only promise and hope that you continue to work your way through FF14 ARR. You've probably heard from 1000 people now, is that ITS WORTH IT.
Interesting video you have here. I would I agree with you 100% but until you'd experience Endwalker. I would suggest revisiting this video after finishing Endwalker and see if you still hold the same opinion.
@@moopliss I played ARR after beating EW and had a much better experience with the context that comes full circle. But I'm also of the opinion that I shouldn't have had to play HUNDREDS of hours of MSQ and force myself to engage with what was a slog for me to get a pay off that late. It's not a gamer's job to wait hundreds of hours for the game to get good .. that's the game's job to entice new players to find out more. I hope you manage to get that far and also make another video about your experience!
The funniest thing is all the anime avatar people defending FFXIV as if he personally attacked them. The dude didn't really enjoy FFXIV and apparently that is a crime.
Started on Sunday and I'm loving it. At the same time I am a completionist and I am doing every quest. I'm starting to think I should start skipping some of the smaller quests and just do mainline ones
Don't do any side quests. Just do the MSQ and the quests with the Blue backgrounds because they unlock stuff. Side quests are there for extra lore and leveling alternate jobs.
From my from my experience, being told it gets better later on isn't good. The beginning story is boring because how fast I level up. I skip the side quests to make up for it, which is the wrong thing to do because side quests helps filled the world. Besides that everythings great. The the class, fighting, dungeons, and especially the crafting system.
Yeah overleveling can definitely be an issue - I ended up at one point picking up another job or two to mitigate that, so that might help but it also could take a while to level it depending on how far in you are
yeah, you got it. MSQ should NOT be shotgunned back-to-back-to-back. FATEs, Hunt Log, Sightseeing Log, Gold Saucer, Crafting/Gathering, the second you get bored, there's a WHOLE WORLD of content to engage with when the wall-to-wall dialogue turns you off. that's how I did it, never got bored ONCE in ARR (and this was *before* they trimmed the number of quests down)
I wasn’t hooked into the story until end of patch 2.55, but then I was like damn this is sweet. Halfway through Heavensward already cuz now I need to know what happens next
As someone with over 2k hrs and in love with this game, I also haven't been the biggest fan of the story, its like watching a very long anime with very big highlights but the actual episode to episode is just serviceable. Theres alot to love with this game outside of the msq, thats just the runway you need to run for new content, keep at it. You may fall in love with raiding, social, explore zones, etc content. I for one fell in love with raiding and have done a few ults by now which has been the most fun and stressful content ive ever experienced in a game haha.
the end game content of groups fighting a boss is what caught my eye to start, but i had no idea i had to run multiple marathons before i can partake in that content 🏃
@@moopliss end game make up very little of the game. And do require knowing the base parts of the story and each expac to do them. they do shoot off into their own story beats but its a branch off the main path. Stepping away from the "endgame is the real game" mindset helps a lot in ff14.
@@moopliss You can do ARR extremes and Coils of Bahahmut in Party Finder or with the XIV community you have here. It is early content but people still love doing early game raiding syched down just for the fun and thrill of it - and it can give you that raiding experience.
I think for me, I was introduced to it by a friend who played and knew I loved story. I wasn't really told anything else outside of that. My previous MMO experiences was FFXI and a little bit of WoW so I kind of expected the base game story wise to be what it is in each MMO because each base game story is usually "just okay" imo. My mentality going in was just seeing how things improved by each patch/expansion and such and how the writers take with them moving forward. For me, ARR is like reading the start of The Lord of the Rings or 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and you're near the start where you have to get through yet another song describing some random thing sung by a hobbit or yet another marine biology lesson in 20,000. I agree it is dense and dry, but because of that, I get a better understanding of the viewpoints and values that each character has and how it evolves over the story through each expansion. For me, I kind of got into the story early on during the dungeon in the mines cuz I was like... "Wait...why are we putting down a slave rebellion of trolls? These Monerterists that hire us don't seem to be good people..." And then in a short moment when Thancred (I think) mocked my character for blindly completing tasks for random people, something clicked for me. But that's me, everyone is different. Now that I am up-to-date, I really enjoy seeing what the writers build off of which gets introduced in ARR and other expansions afterwards.
THERE'S A JUMPING SECTION IN THE GOLDEN SAUCER?!!!!! As another bored sprout ploughing through the MSQ, I thank you for this info. I'm immediately off to do this now.
Thing is, the ARR MSQ *was* revised. That pre-Titan section is *shorter* than it used to be. But they can't just *not* have you go through that. Those characters show up again later. More than once. Everything in ARR is important later. It's world-building or introducing characters or presenting character traits that make sense later. For instance, the whole side quest section relating to the strain of grapevines and wine-making? That is Very Important for Lore Reasons relating to the character of the Warrior of Light. It'll make sense later, but there are reasons why my shorthand description for the Warrior of Light as presented in the game is "Highly Food Motivated Chaos Gremlin with more Compassion than Sense".
yeah, a big difference between XIV and, per his examples: WoW, is that the WoW expansions seem to be their own stories (and XIV doesn't have an entire chunk of its lore hidden away in comics) and you can jump into them all at any point and have just as much context (read: None) as any other one, whereas the XIV stories and characters carry over through expansions, you meet someone in ARR and suddenly they return in a more important role later on. ARR is meant to be the build-up of your story as an adventurer, people shouldn't just expect to start a game and automatically have everyone know them, trust them, and call them the savior of the world as a brand new player. You do odd jobs, fetch quests, and make connections that matter in the long run. This is actually a relatively common complaint because some folks don't like having to do the grunt work to earn the renown.
I started playing midshadowbringrs and the best advide someone gave me as a sprout was to not race to the end of the msq, the story is a journey best savored and there's nothing you're missing out on at max level.
I have my own issues with ffxiv, but I think it's interesting everyone brings up that particular criticism of the guy who sends you off to get this to prepare a meal. Imo it's actually a bit more nuanced and memorable than people describe it. You go see the leader of a band of "great adventurers" and he sends you on tasks that give the members of his old party a chance to measure your worth. Yeah, the tasks could be better, but there is more to it on a story level than just busy work. I didn't really mind any of the story of arr until I got to the pre patch content leading up to heavensward. That felt pretty tedious for me. Overall, I do think the story approach is good for the game. Some people you meet early on keep coming back for roles later on, and the core party you spend a lot of time with develops massively.
As someone who just recently finished ARR and currently going through the patches towards Heavensword, the MSQ was so boring until the later half but the boss fights were fun and im hyped to start the next expansion. Been enjoying trying out the other classes like rouge and fishing.
I just started a week or so ago and it is a lot to take in. I know the game is old, but the silent interaction between players and NPCs feels weird and the filler quests for the MSQ can be distracting and make about zero sense sometimes. Overall though I like the game play and pace. Eventually I'll catch up to all the cool kids :)
The story was ok back in the day, but now in 2024 it's rly hard to enjoy it when they serve it the way it is. 2 characters with no animations locked in a cutscene for few minutes, mostly without voice acting (even in msq) and at the end everyone have to nod. That's 90% of MSQ.
I get the feeling of wanting to start wherever instead of in the three starter towns, especially for migrants from other MMOs. The reason this game will never do that is, like you said, this is a Final Fantasy game first and a MMO second. For other things to do, I liked the crafting and gathering questlines. In my opinion, some of their stories are better than the questlines for the combat classes. I particularly liked the weaver questline, but they all have their own charm. Later down the line, relic weapons are another great side track. Each one is a massive grind at the end of each expansion, but comes with a questline with it's own set of recurring characters. The relics from later expansions even add new zones that completely change how the game is played. Most importantly, glowy weapons.
Was doing a story dungeon (tam tera deepcroft or something) and while witching the cutscene with the black robed guy I see the pop up that the battle was started...and finished. I was playing a healer. So should I expect all players to not care about sprouts first times and that healers are kinda useless unless their is a big pull?
People who rush in without waiting for new people to watch the cutscene are considered to be pretty rude and aren't the norm in my experience. It's unfortunate you had to experience that. The game now has a system that let's you go with an NPC party for every story dungeon and that's what I recommend when you go through one for the first time. Not only will you not have to worry about that, but it also ensures that you won't be carried and have to learn how to play the game
@@JoaderR I have tried the NPC and for the most part I enjoy it, but at least for the low level dungeons it doesn't seem very helpful for healers. The Npcs follow you so you dont really get to learn how to follow a tanks lead, and the pulls tend to be very small compared to what I see in pc groups.
@@SooothatsDonald Yeah, that's true. That's kinda the problem with the NPC party. The dungeons also end up taking even longer. Unfortunately, I don't really have any tips regarding this, because that really is just how it is and all we can hope for is for an update on their AI, but idk if that will happen anytime soon. I also think this is an even bigger issue when playing as a Healer, because you can just pull more as a Tank and you can also bring more and do more optimal damage as a DPS. Speaking of, have you seen JoCat's "crap guide to FFXIV". I highly recommend checking it out. It was made 3 years ago, but it's still very helpful!
Ah... You've gotten to the "Cheese Subplot." It gets woven in a bit later with Longstop (Hard) and then again in Heavensward. [I use "Cheese Subplot" because it's non-spoilery, and because when I mentioned it to a friend who had gotten to this point in the game their reaction was, "There's a whole *subplot*?" It's also just hilarious to remember that this entire sub-plot starts over a Goblin Cheese Recipe.] The team worked on condensing things, but they still had a huge ammount of information that they had to set up for later. In fact, some of that info is hidden behind the Extreme Clears. And originally it doesn't seem all that much, but it makes later points hit harder. But I think Jocat said, sometimes you *do* just need a story skip. It's not what should be your first option, or even your second, but if you really need to, skip it to get to a point you think you'll enjoy. It's more important to have fun with the game than to do it "correctly." If you're not having fun with a game, that is the worst way to interact with it.
I think a lot of people forget that this is A FINAL FANTASY GAME, a mainline entry. Not WoW, or ESO, or GW2. Final Fantasy games are story-heavy rpgs, with rich lore, insteresting characters, and overall very good world building (with some infamous exceptions). You can't skip the story like you can't skip the story in FF9 or FF10. If people wanted to play 14 to dash trough the story, and be done with the game in 2 months, then, to put it very bluntly, I suggest they go play another MMO.
Yeah but why the story is so bad then ? It's by far the worst story I follow in my life. So much lost time on random quest or delivering. I feel insulted when I'm playing the MSQ in ARR
@@Haarwyvern dunno dude, I'm getting through stormblood, people overhyped heavensward so much to me but it was meh, good, not that good. maybe peak for an mmorpg, but it was just meh. Stormblood is once again boring. I'm clocking at 500 hours in because I took my time doing other stuff and levelling other classes at the same time. people keep telling me that with shadowbringers it really gets good, and I hope it does... I just want to have fun doing dungeons and raiding. That's why I like mmorpgs, and this should technically be the best mmorpg to me because I love FF with all my heart, but I don't know... I want to love this game so much but I feel like I'm forcing myself to.
As someone who’s played it for 5+ years I agree that the ARR story is a drag. It took me almost a whole year to finish just ARR because I was mostly by myself even when I was in an FC. And that was before they shrunk the post ARR patch quests. Also black mage is fun and it’s class quests story is my fav out of all the job quests😂. Cocobussy crawling on the ceiling like a gremlin
Correction, BLM is not fun. It BECOMES fun. Around 56. And more fun around 63. And then stays fun. But DT had brought some decent changes. Loss of the Enhanced Flare hurts a bit, but other changes are sweet. Especially Manafront which is "now do the damaging part of your rotation AGAIN". But yeah, BLM is the WORST choice for Sprouting through ARR. I would know. I did that. Terrible mistake.
@@nemamiah7832 I didn’t start out with black mage, that came later. In fact I was put off by it to begin with, but I agree that it gets so much better in the later level, I was just stating the job quest story is my favorite out of all of them. I actually joined as a lancer/dragoon and I recommend that job to start because of its easy rotation in easy levels (albeit fairly boring) but it was easy enough to get me through story.
The reason why the main story is important is because those characters you help will follow you trough every expansion, you can click past any dialog of the side characters, you won't ever see them again, focus on the main characters Like Yshtola, Thancre, Urianger, the elf twins etc.
The problem with starting anywhere is the expansions build off one another, so it'd be like opening a book to a random chapter and just reading. There are surprise reveals where you'd just be like "who?" My friend who skips all cutscenes finishes expansions in a day, so there is a way to get through it fast if you don't want to read through it which doesn't require the ability to start at any expansion. But if you want to know what's going on in chapter 15 the only way to do that is to read chapters 1-14 or skip it all and watch a summary. That works too. 🤷🏾♀
I started playing in the middle of last year when it was in between expansions. I also started with free trial but when the 3rd person tried to trade me outfits or helpful gear and couldn’t I bought the game and also learned that once you buy the game you lose the free trial. Don’t regret it now but I was bummed out at first to lose that. There is a “gentleman detective” quest line that is hilarious in ARR. Its title is “The Rise and Fall of Gentlemen” and it is located in southern thanalan at x:21.5 y:39.1. This quest helped me to get the laughs and able to complete the last leg of ARR! Check it out if you want a break from MSQ! Need level 50 class.
The first time that I tried FF14 a few years ago I thought there was too much text, the English was too difficult for me, story didn't intrigue me, disliked how slow the actions were and didn't like the graphics. Then like many others got a WoW-burnout and kept hearing all the praise about FF14 so I gave it another try. I ended up doing the Arr story 3x, the first time I didn't read anything, second time I followed along but missed a few details which made me feel lost and the third time I took my time, read everything until I understood, leveled other jobs inbetween, explored cities and met new people. I had such a good time!! Didn't have that much fun in any game for many years. The third time I did ARR story was actually the time I enjoyed it the most, surprisingly. Yes it has some slow parts, like the quests to get to Titan. I also had a difficult time getting thru 2.1-2.3 without constant breaks. It still had good and fun parts and imo you can make it more fun by just enjoying the game on your own time, not feeling like you've got to catch up or rush it. It gets better! I get that it can be off putting to new players, at first it did that to me too. This isn't only a problem in FF14, WoW struggles the same when it comes to attracting and keeping new players. Skipping the story doesn't look like an option tbh, there's too much you'll miss out on and it takes away from that feeling of being an adventurer exploring this new world. Like in WoW, chromie time and making people choose in which expansion they'll level up has so many flaws. Atleast in WoW each expansion feels separate and you can enjoy it without knowing previous lore but to do that in FF14 would be such a pity. I guess it helps to approach the game and story with a different mentality, the same one we all had when we started playing games. We didn't really know what we were getting into but just enjoyed the journey. And when it comes to FF14 you just got to trust when they say it's worth it, because it really is. :)
I got through ARR by breaking it up with my job ADHD. I didn't level all the jobs to 50 before finishing ARR, but i did have them all unlocked and had some time played with them.
best i can say for new players is go at your own pace and honestly if you are bored at any point in the story dont be afraid to skip the dialogue most "important" things are voiced custscenes/ cutscenes in general. this is coming from someone really into lore who reads every little thing
To me, ARR is one massive tutorial arc. It's where you learned about the world. It's where you learn all the basic dungeon mechanics. It's where you learn basic job action. Everything got moved because of this tutorial arc. So for me personally, I appreciate ARR story arc even if I don't particularly enjoy it either. It's there for a reason, and the reason became real clear real quick afterwards. As HW has shown us.
The game of FFXIV starts at level 1. The MSQ is a journey, the world unlocks contextually. That's the _strength_ of the game. It's not a problem that your friends are at a higher level or in a different zone, because they can literally sync down to your level to play with you. What CBU3 must do is create a new entry point in Dawntrail, though. Including a proper introductory path to some key characters, to the combat and to combat language.
Im a relatively new player (havent reached a year yet, stilla sprout), and tbh I found the new player experience of ff14 a LOT better than most mmos. It doesnt feel like Im thrown into an environment where I meed to know everything at once. I feel like I can take my time. Im only just in post SHB atm because ive taken my time and had fun engaging in the side activities and community. ARR has its issues, but its a good introduction to the world and sets up basically every other story, while also teaching you the basics of the game. And I came into the game more or less alone, I had two friends already at max level but I didnt really need much help. I was quite content just exploring, doing the story and I made some friends along the way. I dont really get why people say its a bad new player experience. If you genuinely do not enjoy the story and that, I dont think ff14 is the right mmo for you, there are plenty of other mmos that will throe you into stuff faster if thats your thing
I first started Final Fantasy 14 in March 2022. When I started I didn’t even know what an MMO was. I’ll be honest it was the story in ARR kept me coming back and trying to figure it out because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. it was a steep learning curve and I needed the “slower” content to keep me from being overwhelmed. Even though I still was :-)
The biggest complain my friend has is "All I do is talking to ppl left and right." which... I can't lie ARR is terrible if you want (like him) more combat and action than talking.
Hi! so I've been playing since 1.0 and since you asked for advice and gave some great tips on what else you can do in the game I thought I would add to it. i'll be spoiler free 0. The moon symbol on your EXP bar is "resting exp" when you log out in a "sanctuary" (anywhere with a teleport crystal) it starts storing, it stores exp and gives you that stored EXP on top of your regular exp when you are leveling 1. Hunt log, weekly hunt marks, S, A, and B ranks. great source of EXP, rare items, minions, mounts and meeting people for the trains 2. Grand Company gives access to squadrons, you hire NPC to go into dungeons with you, or on mission, you get EXP boosting items and free teleport tickets, you also have access to the trust system which is the same but you don't have to hire NPC 3. FATEs have connected FATES, the harder ones give you mounts, minions, weapons and gear, each expansion has 2 "hidden" FATE bosses that drop items for exclusive gear, weapons, and minions 4. Beast tribes are great for EXP, minions, orchestrations, materia, and mounts. some are for crafting (great way to lvl them) some are for battle. ARR has 5 or 6 and the other exp have 2 or 3 5. Leeves are a great way to lvl fast for any job, gatherer, or crafter and they give rare items 6. at HW u unlock Wonderus trials, specialty crafting and gathering, and the ?"favor"? system which give rare items that can sell for 10+mil on the market board. 7. each exp has "Deep Dungeons" they give rare items, EXP, mounts, relics, glamours, achievements, and more ARR example. Palace of the Dead 8. fishing has ocean fishing and big fishing which is a fun thing to do and great exp and can win mounts, rare titles like "of dragons deep" rare fish, and level up quite fast 9. Daily roulette (once unlocked) are great way to get gil, grand company seals, and exp 10. Each expansion has relics for the all duties of hand and land and jobs. they are unique in look that you don't see anywhere else in the game. 11. each exp has a zone building quest line, excluding ARR, that changes how it looks while you progress through, they give you rare items, gil, mounts only obtainable through them and gear. 12. once you're high enough you can do extreme, savage, ultimate, and unreal versions of trials for exclusive mounts, weapons, and titles. 13. there is a gardening, decorating and housing system, you can also rent an apartment in one of the zones (there are 3 ARR zones, 1 HW zone and 1 StB zone) or rent a room in your free company house 14. in the "inn" which is able to be accessed in most cities has the Glamour system, orchestration player, armor chest, a journal that let's you replay cut scenes of all quests that have one there is plenty more but as you can see it's a long list. I hope this helps anyone out and please enjoy the game! Dawntrail will bring a complete graphic update so it wont look PS3 like anymore :)
I started playing about 3 years ago, arr was indeed a slog but i was told by my friend that ff14 is an investment, it wont be great at first but you'll grow to love it a lot, and I did. I unlocked stuff like mounts for faster travel, glamour to make my character look better, minions that follow me around and do weird stuff, the boss fights got better the story improved, and before I knew it im learning about raiding and ocean fishing and eureka and housing. It feels like theres just so much to do now that i might have time for it now but starting off i remember asking was this worth it and in hindsight yes 100% it was, so as my friend did for me ill say you'll get to a place if you keep going that makes you say it was worth the effort
It is true ARR MSQ is still a grind, but the emotional moments in HW, the Wayward Daughter in SB, the tragedy in the SHB and the Walk in EW make you go “I could redo ARR MSQ to relive this again” There is a lot of character building in ARR, characters that you like, characters you hate, characters that start and grow over time. Your ingame relationships with these will culminate in different parts of the game, different expansions. It’s that bonds you make early that tug at your heartstrings the hardest when the time comes, and the grind is worth it.
Most of my new player friends liked the base game as a basic RPG beginning, but every single one that has gotten to endgame got so ridiculously grabbed by the transition into Heavensward that they absolutely dive bombed the story from there
I realize this is late, but I've played other FF games before. Like Nintendo NES FF games, so I'm not unfamiliar with the series. I'm also a Lost Ark refugee. So, I started FF 14 two days before the maintenance, then got the story skip, the gunbreaker level up, and the early access to Dawntrail. Let me tell you about my experience so far. When my character woke up in the end of the last expansion, he was at level 90 with 660 gear. BUT, he wasn't wearing it. I had to put it on him through the armory. So I go through the story line then I hit the dungeon(?) that required item level 660. I was at 603. ??? After two hours of dicking around I finally found a menu where I could add a second earring and I think I was missing a ring, too. All of a sudden, I'm at 660. Also, I'm doing level 20 damage, because they set me up with a set of skills that were all level 20. I knew Jack about how to run this "job" so I ended up, after dying to the main boss multiple times, looking for how to play this "job". But they're all pre-Dawntrail. So interfaces are a little different and all of the new skills aren't in the pre-sets. Also, while the pop ups that show when I start the game tell me to do some daily things and give an explanation about them, I had no idea what any of these things were. So I ended up with some friendly players on my first level up raid, they helped out immensely. I still have the sprout symbol over me, don't know when that goes away. Also, I had to stop at another "dungeon" because I kept getting curb stomped by the boss. I went back to the character I started to level up and I'm going to have to get him up to 90 just so I can learn how to play his "job." I don't recommend anyone just jumping into the higher tier stuff and skipping everything. You won't know how to play your "job" and learning as you go probably won't go as you expect.
* Try an ocean fishing trip in Limsa. * Interesting tidbit: A lot of the HC raiders are also HC fishers, because it kinda requires the same skills. Learning how to catch a specific rare fish, is similar to learning a new raid mechanic. * The cheese quest with the dungeon is my personal favorite in ARR, not everyday you have to kill a dragon to get a wheel of cheese. * ARR sets up the rest of the expansions. You probably could have skipped a lot of reading some quests i think the more important parts happen past level 35. However the real slugfest is the post ARR msq until Heavensward. * There is always an option to buy a skip to the current expansion.
i know its a really special game but its the one MMO i havnt been able to get through. Ive played BDO,GW,GW2,ESO,Albion,Runescape and im a mainstay WoW player. I just really cant get past the massive story to catchup with people. i get burnt out its the one MMO i wish i got into when it went through its rebirth phase rather then trying to play the game 8 years later i know familiarity has alot to do with it aswel;. i dont mind being locked behind a story but i do mind being locked behind numerous novels.
this is where I remind you that back abit now they actually removed about 30% of all the msq quests in ARR. But if there is one thing I can say as a long time player. Everything gets better the long you play. And I mean literally everything.
Yeah i took like 3 breaks from ff14 and i am still not done with arr. Idk if i ever will. The moment i resub i will play for a few days and then get bored while constantly looking at the mission list how many quests i have left to leave this slogfest. Most classes only get fun if you reach like level 50. THe first 30 levels are mostly click 1 or 2 abilities. The gameplay also feels very slow in the earlier levels. in WoW it feels way more dynamic and fluid
@@moopliss I play Samurai and and Summoner. I am on the last patch before Heavensward. So i am on the post ARR Content Patches. Samurai is fun now but he starts at level 50. Summoner took a while until it was fun
loved the video, when i was doing msq, hearing YoshiP state that we should take the game at our own pace and not binge it, since content patches will always take time to make really made me slow down. taking the story slowly and enjoying the smaller things. Its a nice way to put the bar down on the action we expect from action packed stories, which ff14 isnt. A nice realization from this is that some stories undermine themselves by not giving themselves a breather from time to time. Otherwise we dont the grounding of relatable, daily life moments.
I started playing back when Shadowbringers first released after my friend spent months convincing me to give it a try, needed something fresh to play as the current patch at the time for World of Warcraft (8.2: Rise of Azshara) had left me feeling burnt out by the upkeep of their borrowed power system and I felt like I could no longer keep up with it's daily demands. Even though the A Realm Reborn questline felt like it took an eternity to complete and eventually move on to Heavensward, I have very much enjoyed every minute I've played the game since first trying it. I've never really set foot in any of the hardest endgame content but to me that's how I choose to enjoy the game nowadays: less focus on the difficulty and more on the social aspect as it's such a welcoming and inclusive community in comparison to it's competitors on the market. Akiza Enishi (LIGHT - Phoenix)
Ive been playing since Stormblood as a content creator I watch has been hyping it up since ARR and I've only recently hit post-ARR due to these issues - it took until Akh Afah Ampethere for me to truly fall in love with the game and the story *is* setting up cool things finally. I'd say the 50% mark is probably the worst of ARR - taking breaks to do side content and experiencing the game one expansion at a time instead of rushing is absolutely the best way to get through it.
As I hear you giving your thoughts on FF14 I realised: he's right. Absolutely right in fact. And I sat through a lot hours reading the dialogue, running errands etc in the game. The word that wants to roll off my tongue is: pacing. Reliving the memories of playing FF14 up to Endwalker is that we as modern humans really live in fast pace. I came back for FF14 whenever I could because it was exactly doing this: slowing me down to a calmer pace. Excluding raids, FF14 can help go at a slower, more enjoyable pace. May be it is a good thing this game can do this for so many people. The decision is yours. Cheers
I was finally able to jump in when it was released on Xbox. The realm reborn msq was such a drag. Enjoyable setting up everything, but it really was more of chore than anything. I did half of heaven’s ward. I skip storm blood, and I fully completed shadow bringers, and holy crap. That was the best time of my life.
I have been playing since Stormblood and I have always been one expansion behind. During Shadowbringer I played Stormblood. Endwalker I played SB. Now we got Dawntrail and I’m just finishing Endwalker. And I’m a die hard fan. You don’t need to be up to date to enjoy. I take breaks on occasion but I always come back.
I made the mistake to rush some side content from FFXIV and now I regret because everything is interconnected. Following the msq is what makes us love and hate some characters and this makes all the difference. Even being behind the latest content isn't a problem. You'll still find ppl to run dungeons and make side content (because it's easier for veterans).
A bit late to the video but if you read it then here it goes: So I have these two friends who are huge fans of the game. They got me into FF14 again 6 months ago(I quit once in 2022 or something as I was busy with Lost Ark) after much pestering. And I had exactly same experience, if not worse, in ARR like you did. Prolly worse because I did most of the questing alone and hated the slop. For me the breakthrough happened after post ARR (when you beat Ultima weapon) when I absolutely gave up on the story and started crafting. My friends thought I would quit the game at that point but crafting was like a mini puzzle and a hoarding minigame all in one. I love collecting items in games, especially if they are useful in crafting. And so I did exactly that. Fast forward a bit and I somehow reached Heavensward after swearing at various characters. Midway through HW I realized that Post ARR was a horribly shoddy attempt at wrapping up the loose ends from OG 1.x patches and absolutely hated the game again. But somehow the game itself was just so endearing that I stayed. And somehow I was at the end of HW. And it was such a memorable experience. Suddenly the story got good enough that you don't realize how smoothly the plot progresses. After I finished the last trial boss, I had some free time so my friends got me into the first normal raid series (not Alliance. As of now, Crystal Tower is mandatory clear for ARR completion). And I think that's when I started falling in love with the game. The experience was nothing like the previous trials and raids. Especially the last raid of this series where even veterans struggled and we wiped bunch of times but kept going. In the middle of all of this, I also got to experience the Crystal Tower series and I didn't particularly find it a lot of fun as there were 24 players and shit happened on the screen that made no sense. Still I had friends so it wasn't bad taking pics after each raid. I think I fell in love with the game properly during post stormblood when a certain sequence happens. Depends on person to person but I think that sequence was absolutely fantastic. When I reached Shadowbringers, all the effort I put into doing all the raids and quests started paying off. As someone who loves world building, everything you learnt in the past expacs finally starts being more heavy. And finally I reached Endwalker last month. And I don't think it's right to call it the best expac in a vacuum. Imo EW can only feel amazing if and only if you have attachment to previous expacs. So EW was a fantastic expac for me. I honestly think it's an experience because EW rewards you for all the time you put into the game. Whether it be raiding or any other misc activities. So the only thing I would advise new players is that while they are dragging themselves through the slog of MSQ, they should also consider giving the newly available items a full chance. Whether it be crafting, new classes, beast tribes, leves, your class quests, fates, connected yellow quests through the aether current blue ones, etc. Everything you do in the game has a payoff in EW. It will definitely suck to be stuck behind in DT but DT is gonna be here for the next 2-3 years at the very least. No point in ruining your experience to reach EW now only to join the list of whiners who cry about no content once you catch up and finish all the major DT combat content. Edit: on a side note, I did play this game along with my sibling. So us competing over stuff and duoing trial bosses/hunts was also an experience unique to us. I only bought the game when I realised there are things I wanna do with my sibling and I am staying here for a long time.
I’ve leveled two different toons in FFXIV but lost interest twice. First time I leveled a white mage up into the first part of Heavensward. Second time, on a white mage again, I got halfway through Stormblood and quit again. The first problem I see is how solo the game is designed to be played. Even if you level with another person, the class specific quests are done solo. The cut scenes are all solo. It feels disjointed to actually play with another person while leveling. It feels very awkward because the game seems designed as a solo experience. Second issue I had were the dungeons. During the base game, the dungeons are SO simple there isn’t an issue going in with a group even if you aren’t familiar with the specific mechanics of each boss. Even as the healer, I didn’t feel any pressure to look up guides before doing a dungeon required by the main story questljne (MSQ). This quickly changes as you get into the expansions however. The dungeons get much more complicated and you need to be aware of specific mechanics to successfully complete them (especially in a key role like healing). The sheer number of dungeons thrown at you while leveling complicates this even further. During Stormblood it got to the point I dreaded hitting a required dungeon while doing the MSQ. You cannot progress further until you do that dungeon. It began to feel like a job as I was reviewing guides before each dungeon. Doing the daily roulette for dungeons became a stress inducing event as a dungeon I’d only done once way back in Heavensward might pop up and I wouldn’t remember the specific mechanics. I’d die and then the group would die while I watched kicking myself for not remembering that one mechanic that killed me. So I stopped doing the daily roulette. The game just wasn’t fun at that point, so I quit. I know I could switch to a pure dps job and my death wouldn’t be so impactful, but I love healing in mmo’s. I’m also aware seasoned players might think the dungeon mechanics are obvious, but as a relatively new player in FFXIV that just wasn’t the case. I’ve watched some videos on the Duty Support system which have interested me. If I can do dungeons solo with my NPC buddies, then I wouldn’t have to waste my group’s time when I die to mechanics in dungeons. Maybe I’ll try FFXIV yet again. Who knows, maybe I’ll even hit max level. 😂 Edit: I should mention how great the community in FFXIV is. I stated above I hated dying to mechanics during dungeons. Never once in an FFXIV dungeon was I yelled at for causing the group to die. Not once did the group dissolve after I died in a dungeon. Everyone would just run back and try again. They answered any questions I had as well. Quite the nice change from other mmo’s, especially WoW. If you die to boss mechanics in WoW, you are told how stupid you are before the group just abandons you. That probably explains my stress when it comes to healing dungeons as I’ve played the early expansions of WoW for almost 20 years. I’m conditioned to stress about mechanics and messing them up. Even knowing how nice the FFXIV community is, I still stress when it comes to healing dungeons I don’t remember well.
I actually first started around covid times but then the trial was only till level 30 so i bought the game already. However at the time i couldn’t upgrade my account to the full version because the site was being jank so i uninstalled in pure anger wrote a bad review then didn’t look at the game for another 3 years. Then halfway into 2023 i decided to pick it up again and this time did manage to upgrade my account and the sub i bought back in 2020 still worked cuz i never truly redeemed it. Now i’m still playing almost every day and have a few alts as well
I’ve just reached level 55 and started realm awakening or whatever it’s called and I must say I am so glad someone else has pointed out how BORING THE BANQUET QUESTS ARE!! There is a lot of back and forth like you stated but something about the banquet quests are so soul draining it should be illegal! I really hope nothing ahead is like that lol now I’m just a level 55 running around doing main quests bc idk what else to do 🥺🤣
I started the game in Feb when it came to Xbox. That Titan questline nearly got me quitting honestly. I pushed through it, and it really does get better, especially once you make it through ARR. The main thing that bugs me is that you can't do the MSQ with another player. Sure, you can kill things together or do the dungeons together, but I would have loved to play the story with a friend. I get the cutscenes would be just your own character, but having to disband the party for every one of the cutscenes. I have now completed DT and lost my sprout status (so 300 hours playtine). Overall, I have enjoyed and am still enjoying the game. I have definitely story skipped on alts (I know you don't need alts, but I have always been an altoholic 😂)
Yes this is what makes the story good. What makes the story good is that it gives time for the characters to breathe. Its not about always fighting godlike entities, the Titan boss fight wouldnt be as memorable if you didnt make that entire feast before fighting it, this is how you know a boss is a big deal.
I have made two attempts to get into the game. The first time i gave up during the banquet quest. The second time i got bored during the 9 million quests between ARR and the next expansion.
I just wish there was an option or something for people who do not care for the story. I personally did not care for the story and skipped all of it, including dawntrail. I like doing the end game. I quit final fantasy many times because i was forced to finish all the dlc to do what i wanted. But, if i rememberp correctly. I think the dev said final fantasy xiv is supposed to be more of a story game. So, ig thats why they force you to play the story.
I have had multiple friends who were/are ff14 fiends and they wouldn't shut up until I tried 14 myself. Made it maybe to level 20-30 before I was just far too bored of msq and ultimately gave up on the game. I started as a black mage which I thought was boring so I swapped to warrior and had more fun drawing aggro in the first few dungeons but ultimately didn't enjoy any of what I experienced enough to see it to the end. I had friends who would drive me around to get new waypoints and power level me and stuff but it just didn't do it for me. I think the fact that its a more traditional mmo rpg with tons of skills to keep track of and how my character just stands in place casting stuff is just a type of mmo design id rather not go back to. I much prefer the more action oriented yet simple design of guild wars 2. Sometimes you can just tell if you're going to enjoy combat in a game from the first few encounters. Was an easy tell for that game as well as something like, warframe which I'd argue is close enough to an mmo as well. Different strokes and all that.
Honestly, I skipped the whole ARR story, is just too fucking boring. Then, while farming the tomestones for my lvl50 set before starting heavensward, I pulled a 2 hour video on youtube explaining the whole story of ARR, and caught up to it before starting HW. Best decision of my life.
I picked up FF14 on March this year after watching my bf play it. I'll admit, if it wasn't for him flying me around and encouraging me during ARR (particularly the patch quests after) I probably would've dropped the game. I'm so glad I didn't though. the pace picks up in heavensward and I got invested in the characters. stormblood got me invested in the world FF14 takes place in and after that (shadowbringers-dawntrail) I've just been having a blast. I ran msq as WHM but now I'm learning to enjoy the other jobs as well. advice for another thing to do when bored with msq is the crafting classes. it's actually a pretty fun mini game in itself when you start leveling it up.
I stared in 1.0 for a spell, didn’t get nowhere because game ran like crap and I had a potato (turned out the game was potato) Then I got back into ARR in HW on PlayStation3. Stopped, wandered around other MMOs and other games never finding a home. I came back in SHB and finally beat ARR and have been back since with occasional breaks. It took me three tries for FFXIV to finally click. Endwalker came out and I was still in SHB MSQ. DT Will be my first expansion where I am current. I am excited.
As just one of the local emotional vampire gang, whenever I happen to see a sprout or see someone new streaming the MSQ, I always tell them the game is a marathon not a sprint. Take your time and enjoy the ride. I find the Grinding Gear pair have found a perfect way to game without burning themselves out and have enjoyed seeing their time with the MSQ. Funny thing about that banquet quest was the point each member of their team was more or less testing you as they don't want to just send someone to their death. I only noticed that a few years after when I was thinking on the worse parts of ARR back in the dead. ((Real worst was the dead zone of MSQ that happened somewhere from 42 to 48. Had to Fate farm to get exp at a rate that felt worth it pre dungeons exp buff patch.)) Even when the questing isn't grand, it's building a world. Hell even in Dawntrail people more or less just treat us as another guy, as they have no reason to think any of the stories of the Warrior of Light are real, if they have even heard of them. And I love it personally. It's not for everyone for sure, but anyone who loves deep dives on lore will love FF14.
i agree with you, but i find it hard to continue the marathon when i have to start paying for the game when it should be the trial period. guess it's a good example that offering discounts on purchasing the game and forcing players off that "trial experience" isn't the best thing for sprouts. it's been a big reason why i haven't logged into the game in over 2 months😔
@@moopliss The free trial for ffxiv is everything in ARR, HW, and Stormblood. There's hundreds of hours of free content you can do before paying a cent for the game.
I know they've already shortened ARR a few times already, but I think it still needs a lot of work. It's still an important story to go through to lay the base for the rest of the game, but most of it is still fetch quests. If they got rid of most of that and kept the bones, the player would still get what they need out of ARR without being bored out of their minds/dropping the game.
Just finished ARR not that long ago and i did enjoy it for the most part (except the tedious missions before fighting titan). I think the main reason i got through it was the dungeons and trials especially when they began to use mechanics. On the relic grind currently and that makes me want to quit more than the msq 😂. But i think the best thing about ff14 really is the community. Best commty ive ever been in.
Final Fantasy XIV is the epitome of "It's about the journey, not the destination". Literally one of Endwalker's hardest hitting line is "Have your journey been good? Has it been worthwhile?". You are in no need to rush. You can play together with your friends already in Satasha, Palace of the Death, or the Gold Saucer. The game is big on the social aspect too, and all of those you can get early on. While you may not be able get into the later area's housing districts, you should be able to actually teleport there with some hijinks, you just need some help. AFKing in Limsa, going clubbing or to an art party, doing stupid shit in the FC house, are things one can do early on. Even Lalafell Parades are purposefully only kept to the starting areas. You are not supposed to rush. While ARR can always use a coat of new paint, it also allows you to have an appreciation for ho far things have come.
I’m a 🌱 or at least I was until 3 hours ago. I have fun with the game, I think these are non issues created by people going into the game with a WoW mentality. It’s not the devs job to cater to the 1% of players trying to change everything fundamental about how the game works.
I tried the game once when it was rly hyped and yeah i had the same problem, I rly dont care about any story in any game like i have 15k hours in wow and no idea what is happening in the story at all so for me having to play whole story which i didnt even read or anything like that was just pain and theres no way i will ever come back to do this tbh
My biggest issue is the overworld in general, im basically invincible and it doesnt make for a particularly engaging game.The deep dungeon palace of the dead is pretty cool and challenging. The dungeons get better around lvl 40, the extreme trials on minmum ilvl at 50 are pretty cool keeping old content relevant, so you dont have to wait until max level to raid. but the overworld remains very dull and im midway through heavensward atm.
The overworked normal mobs are balanced for casual players. I'd reccomend joining an s rank hunt train or doing some achievement fates for a bigger overworld challenge
Yeah, I'm a FFXIV player since 2015 and I can say with confidence: it used to be way worse. At some point between expansions, they streamlined parts of the ARR MSQ , trimming some fat over the unsurmountable amount of slog quests, boosting the overall EXP for the quests that remained, in result. But... they also chose to not remove all of those quests, still keeping a bunch and they make you do some absurd amount of detours from the main plot, which is insane. They could easily cut more... WAY more and guess what, you won't be penalized for it. And the reason is simple: the actual MSQ + dungeons throughout ARR gives you SO MUCH EXP that makes you, most of the time, way above the minimum level requirement to attend these quests (which, by the way, was not the case back in the day).
To add a little context to the Banquet Quest. When the game was still in 2.0-2.5, Titan was actually considered one of the hardest boss, especially in Expert, since falling off the platform actually permanently knocks out a player from the duty (your body disappears completely so you can't revive unless the party wiped). The quests that lead up to Titan was actually made to give players hints on Titan's mechanics. The Company of Heroes were actually "secretly training" the hero to beat Titan by sending them on these quests.
- Though not one of them, the fake Company of Hero NPC who is mostly a comical relief, (Trachtoum/"Tidus-slayer guy") uses line AOE and small bombs AOE akin to Titan's Rockslide to push and attack the player.
- The lancer COH NPC (Landenel) introduce you to the southern area of the forest and sends you to kill an Adamantoise who does big circular AOE around itself similar to quite some of Titan's circular AOE around himself.
- The miqote COH NPC (U'odh Nunh) introduce you to the southern area of the desert, and gives you a top and bottom armor pieces, as well as gloves for your effort, which helps build your stats to fight Titan.
- The goblin COH NPC (Brayflox Alltalks) is not only world building to show you there are lots more "friendly" demihumans NPCs, but also gives you the boots required for more item level, as well as unlocked the dungeon which not only is good for grinding level, but also allows you to grind for your weapon and other better green armor pieces if required, to fight Titan.
- The blind lalafell COH NPC (Shamani Lohmani) is literally mostly for world building and introduce you to the west part of Costa Del Sol and also lore about defected Garleans that SE prepped for future content. He is the only one that is kind of "useless" out of the 5 COH NPCs, other than for world building, but also has one of the longer quest where you have to do so many random delivery and definitely should have his quest line cut down more.
The thing that a lot of players missed if they don't really understand the lore of Titan or watched 1.0 cutscenes on RUclips however, is that Titan unlike the other primals (Ifrit and Garuda in ARR 2.0 story), is actually "peaceful". He is literally the Crag Farther and his only goal is to protect his children (who were oppressed by the Lomisians) and thus him and his children doesn't have any urgency to invade the "overdwellers" and are mostly content staying below the earth. The COH knows that and thus doesn't have that urgency to send you to fight Titan, and instead opted to "train" you and prepare you for the fight instead. Of course, they also can't allow Titan to live uninterrupted as not only does Titan drains the land of aether which will ruin the land, the Kobold might turn aggressive in the future if left uncontrolled, and have their land drained of aether. Thus they still sent you to fight Titan in the end.
Its stupid details that can basically be skipped now that they shorten the questline and made all the bosses much easier and stuff, but SE for some strange reason chose to retain all of them for world-building purposes and I definitely agree that it will bore the hell out of any new players who were trying to rush to the late game to play with friends or see the "good part" of the story. From my understanding, the Banquet and the Corrupted Aether Crystal quests are 2 places where most people quits FFXIV, and when they got past The Garuda fight, is where most people stay on for good.
For all the write up I appreciate the explanation. There is so much lore lost to 1.0. Thank you for the time it took to put it in print .
You could also see it as a slight hint of "hey, if you eat food, you get a buff."
thats great... but idk if i learned that... XD
I do remember people dropping off the map so i tried to avoid it.
Your comment just emphasize the care the DEVs took to develop the game and as a new player who thought: "I gotta save the world from a fucking giant Titan Primal, why am I delivering you cheese?", this makes a lot of sense as an MMO player, I understand the preps for the final content and the grinding involved.
Now I just regret I havent played the game earlier.
@@ArieysValentine corrupt aether quests... I don't even remember that
Honestly, best way to enjoy FFXIV is to just take your time. Yes, Dawntrail is coming out soon, but there really won't be any enjoyment out of it if you rush yourself into it. If anything, you'll burn yourself out. Take your time with the story and explore. You'll enjoy the game so much more that way and won't become overwhelm with missing context towards the end.
I've had a few friends that paid to skip the content just to play through the Shadowbringers expansion when it was first released and they've all quit after 2 weeks mostly due to being unable to understand anything that was going on.
I also quit the game around that time as well, but after coming back on a new character and taking my time to play the story from the very beginning, I wanted to go back and slap myself for even skipping a huge portion of it on my first run.
So yeah, don't rush and take your time with it. The game won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
But that is exactly why myself, and others, get bored and fall off. "Take it slow. Take years to play through. It isn't going anywhere. Do a quest or two here and there and smell the flowers." Like, that isn't my play style, nor a lot of people's play styles. I want to play at a reasonably good clip and enjoy it while having a fun, engaging story.
It's just one of those games where people are like, "Oh the game is amazing once you get past the tutorial" only this game is like 100 hours of tutorial. It's just really rough to enjoy, especially when people are literally telling others to extend those hours out by taking their time. If ARR is boring to people, I'm not sure how extending ARR longer will help.
i'll definitely take my time⌛ just hope that i don't run into spoilers online when Dawntrail releases😅
Best advise :)!
I just came back after a a 5y+ break and playing my 1. char that only was played during ARR and its so nice again
@@drudle ARR is roughly 120-ish hours, Heavensward is 110 hours, Stormblood is 120, Shadowbringers is 115, and Endwalker is 90 hours (at base) 130ish at 6.55. Endgame in XIV is pretty much 8 weeks. Savage Raiding is 8-12 weeks before echo comes out at the .25 patches. The cycle of patch content used to be 3 months is now 4 months.
You are honestly not missing much at end game. There's no player power, no grinding and no real time sink. At max level, you log in for 5 days @ 30 minutes. You're capped for end game currency. If you raid you're now depending 2-3 days at average of 2 hours. So at end game your typical midcore average player is interacting with on current content roughly 8 hours and 30 minutes a week.
@@drudle I feel this but the opposite hand is to jump into a game you dont get much emotional investment in. there IS the option to pay for skips and its essentially the idea of paying for part of a book collection or a whole collection you can back track to at any time.
THe current system is a flawed method to apporach to new players IF you see it as such while many many ff14 players would rather quit the game than ever have the stories weve all been through become skipable. ALSO...im gonna be real it at most takes a year to get through the games story (i was taking forever when i firs joined stormblood)
it totally valid why people fall off but in the end THIS is a massive reason 14 lived where other MMOS died. Being diferent in ways that cattered to a more selective playerbase than just trying to be another wow.
It's tricky because I don't think the answer is letting new players start in any expansion because the main reason the expansions are so praised is because they build off of the set up, if you started in Shadowbringers, even the scenery is spoilers that would badly diminish the story beats that made the expansion so loved.
I think they need to overhaul the quests in ARR and lower the levels skills are learned so new pkayers can get to the interesting, important stuff without things like the fetch quests and other fluff that makes it tedious.
It's tricky because GW2(I don't play WoW so no comment) has a lot of issues with it's story and it doesn't hit in the same way, FF14 heavily relies on you playing in a specific order so they would almost have to rewrite ARR to make the pace better to fix it, there's not really a way around it since skipping will kill what makes the rest work so well.
you are right, there is no "one shoe fits all" to solve this. i'm no game developer, but i feel like there can be steps made to make FF14 easier for new players to experience and at the end of the day, enjoy all together.
Would recommend someone to start watching Game of Thrones at it's final season? That's essentially what you're recommending for FF14. This is a story focused game, trying to avoid it or skip around it robs you of the experience you came here for.
@@ProfitSlim ??? I said the game relies on the story so the answer isn't to let new players skip.
@@mismismism weird, I was replying to moopliss and yt didnt @ him, I agree with you tho, obviously lmao
@@ProfitSlim Aah, I see
It helps immensely with the msq grind if you dont have your eyes set on the expansions, and just take the story for what is in front of you at the current moment.
Dont be in a rush to get places.
I agree, there are definitely some snoozers for quest dialogue.
But I also think that helps you appreciate the expansions more when you finally get to them.
The game is old, and its age definitely shows in more ways than just its graphics.
But it also has a nostalgic factor to it because of this, it can remind you of a different era of gaming.
"Dont be in a rush to get places." great advice in general, both for FF14 and outside of gaming👍
I disagree. I have done all off ARR and got my relic weapon, along with doing all the side quest and other things before moving to the next content when I first started playing. even read all the side quest stories. ARR is still 1000000% the worse part of the game. the ONLY thing I think it does better is how people spoke. in ARR people had their own dialect more and felt like different part of the worlds are different. now a days everyone just has perfect English 99.9% of the time and that's a bit less fun to me.
I fully believe they need to redo all of ARR(tbh they need to re voice the first Expac too). up to date voice acting with a better flow. a good 40/60% of ARR content is not world building it's just bullshit. there is a reason why new content has cut down on side quest because this isnt the 2000s anymore. we don't need 50 quest that offer no real rewards with a worthless story. don't get me wrong there are good stories in ARR but your nostalgia is most likely blocking out the Mount Everest worth of useless outdated quest that is just hey stranger go get me a 15 toad feet for my dinner. k thanks bye the end.
all I am saying is if BDO a lot smaller MMO who has huge expansions with voice acting can redo all their OG story line with voice acting and smoothing out the flow for new players there is no valid reason of the the top 3 biggest MMOs in the world can't
@@MrHoldredge I don't think we disagree 🤔
this always this., ff14 really is a marathon not a sprint and thats why its done so well over the years since so many mmos tried and still try to make you rush to the end.
but that's the issue. you cannot experience the later expansions without experiencing through the worldbuilding that was ARR. the later expansions would not have the same impact if you didn't play through ARR. you mentioned reading books - skipping ARR is like picking up a book but only start reading like halfway through.
Some people just want to experience the different fights and don’t care for the story aspect
agreed, i like the point you made about starting a book halfway through but as @Novarics stated, some players just want to roam into different environments. locking story experiences to avoid spoilers for players makes sense, but i just feel like FF14 could expand they player base if they made things easier.
@moopliss whilst I can see where your coming from, I think the issue is if it was skippable / going through the story was less efficient then alot of people that would otherwise be engaged in the story would not watch or get involved in it because its not considered efficient.
Been shown that players care more about efficiency then having fun which whilst I agree in ARR it's hard to see that. The later expansions incredible story would be ignored my most because of it being less efficient.
@@BeanSandwiches I just dont understand this obsession with making people engaged with the story. I have more fun and enjoyment in the game than tons of people who love the story whereas I don't know much about it since I didn't care for it. I don't think knowing the story is remotely required or necessary for ffxiv to be very enjoyable and while it is a major part of the game, it should not be forced down peoples throats that don't want it. I dont know ANYONE that quit ffxiv because they dont know the lore of the boss they are fighting, BUT i do know people that quit the game because they are tired of the amount of msq questing that does not interest them. The story being as long as it is, should be an option. It can even be a heavily encouraged one, BUT it should not be a requirement the way it is now.
@Novarics I think it's because the story is specifically the main part that differentiates ff14 and makes it unique / is shy ao many people play it.
If the story could be skipped it wouldn't be important, and overall less people would play
Honestly, something huge would be completely revamping every class/job so that their lv1-50 kits feel more satisfying and then maybe increasing the spawn rate of the FATEs along the routes you'd take for the MSQ. That way you can still use your new skills if you're feeling bored but can still beeline through the story if you'd rather. I don't think there's that much fat they could trim from ARR (still some, for sure) so focusing on that would go a long way, I think.
And re voicing the characters and cutscenes in arr to hw quality.
I feel that the entire base toolkit must be available at level 50. Leveling up can then unlock traits that will improve upon your existing toolkit and add new mechanics. Each 10 levels can then add another ability to use.
If you got more of the toolkit in 1-50 then what do you give the players at later levels? Keep in mind revamping the entire toolkit of each job would require revamping the entire 1-50 experience because having more abilities means a stronger character. You would just steamroll everything. Not to mention some dungeons and bosses were designed based around the abilities jobs have at that level. They would have to redesign so much content just to give each job a few extra abilities. It doesn't really seem worth it to be honest.
@@RobotNinja01 ALL the trait effects. One new ability per 10 levels. I think people underestimate how much traits add to the gameplay
1000% agreed. The clunky combat and incomplete job kits of the 1-50 duties doesn't only affect people still doing ARR. Because there are just SO MANY of them, leveling roulettes have a good chance of still plopping you into an ARR duty until you're VERY far into the game. Seriously it takes till like Shadowbringers (third expansion) for the chance of an ARR dungeon in leveling roulette to dip below 50%.
A low-level combat rebalance would indeed be a ton of work but it's probably worth it imo. The people I've introduced to FFXIV almost all stop playing in the ARR stretch and two factors are always cited: the slow pace of the story, and the combat feeling sluggish and boring.
It's a darn shame because the combat really does start to flourish at later levels. But it's a hard sell to go "yeah but the combat gets really good 200 hours in". That's not a reasonable ask, even saying it makes you sound like a freakin cultist.
I don't understand this mentality of "where all your friends are". All your friends are in Limsa. Everyone is in Limsa. lol No but srsly, ppl who've finished the MSQ are still in the base zones due to the content being evergreen and there still being things to do everywhere. (Or cus they afk in Limsa.) You might find the questing itself hit or miss, and that's fine, but you're not missing anything by taking the time to complete the msq while others are ahead of you.
Tbh it really depends who you are, what kind of content you do and how dedicated you are to side stuff/ social stuff. Because not everyone is in the main zones. When i first started the game yeah my friends would help me along with msq content but then they would do side things. Like grind mounts, fates for bicolor gemstones, and even do bozja as well as eureka. Hell people go clubbing to teleport to the shirogane housing area, you need someone on your friend list to estate teleport.
If you are social with this game and you are new its really unavoidable that there will be times where you just feel left out.
Of course now im caught up and ive done nearly everything in the game so im just doing deep dungeon stuff and playing other games while i wait. And even then i wanted to take a friends into heaven on high but one of my friends just wasnt there to unlock it so we just did potd instead so he wouldnt feel left out.
I think it’s more of the fact that as games like final fantasy 14 the amount of quest you have to complete rises just to catch up it’s a good mmo but there’s a lot you have to get through to get there to the interesting parts
Limsa is my jam!!!!
A lot of it has to do with getting to things that are current content. The difficulty is very different as you get closer to newer expansion's content
I want to raid and and do dungeons with my friends, I need to go new for that,
WoW giving players the option to do any expansion at any time is one of its problems
The new player experience in WoW as it is right now with chromie time is incredibly terrible and disjointed, yeh.
Said no one ever 😂
@@_Traveysaid someone litteraly one comment above you
This is something you can actually do in FF11. You can just... START anywhere you want!
I advise going in order... but... yeah the freedom is still there!
@@SnuubScadoob While true, FFXI also has probably the single worst onboarding in any currently running game on the entire market. Speaking from experience there.
The difference of ARR is when you did it. If you did the game as it launched back in 2.0 then it isn't As BAD as a memory because you did them as each patch came out and had to wait a while for the new stuff to pop in. This story was also purposely made longer because of the world building and establishing concepts, ideas and characters that will come back later in the narrative or in sidequests. like a good 1/3rd of the game's content is it's story.
And it's a double edge sword. It's like wanting to read Harry Potter because everyone is hyped for the Half-Blood Prince to come out, but you had to slog through Phiolsopher's Stone and Chamber of secrets before anything really takes off kind of feeling. AS a fan it hurts to hear it and i can make reasoning why the Company of heroes in the titan quest make you go through that as a test of measure and preparation because Titan up to this point was much stronger than Ifrit you fought before...
But not everyone can invest in the MSQ as others. It's the true challenge to get new players to get through it and enjoy it when most of the quests are building up for the future...
Edit: I hope people don't take offense of your legit frustration with ARR MSQ as not everyone can jive with it and as a community there will be some players who will try and deny it because "You just don't get it" in the face of negativity towards it's story.
I think most players understand his frustration.
ARR is not easy to get through.
You will understand it and appreciate it if you stick with the game...but...after Endwalker😅
I just hope he gets that far
i started playing the game 3 years ago and to get to endwalker from ARR it was almost 1 year of playing the ga me everyday dont rush the game game the content will always be there enjoy all aspects of the game i still am working on leveling up my jobs which after 3 years worth of game play is 80% done the thing is to play at a pace which you find fun to do looking forward to seeing your take on the game
The way I introduce ARR to new players is basically that you start out as a complete nobody, and you work your way up, earning your respect by doing the little things as you do. By the time you complete the base game, you are a well respected warrior and in many ways a hero to specific nations. Then when you get to the expansions you will get to do more and more insane stuff that go beyond just being a hero among many, making you stand out as something truly unique and respected, pushing the limits of what a "human" could conceivably do.
Imagine watching Return of the King, then Fellowship of the Ring, then The Hobbit, then Two Towers.
Final Fantasy XIV is a series of books with a story told in sequence. The entire 10 year saga is a single cohesive story which each chapter building on the previous (or reaching back 2-3 chapters to draw upon something seemingly inconsequential).
It's a very different experience from WoW or GW2, but it's a design that will make the game as approachable and the story maintain the same emotional impact 20 years from now as it did on the day of an expansion's release.
Going into it with the mentality of racing to the end for endgame content with friends is the wrong mentality. This game is not about the endgame, but the journey. No other MMO has impacted players at the darkest point in their lives quite like FFXIV, particularly Shadowbringers and Endwalker, making you ask legitimate questions about your own life's journey and what your purpose is, what your means of happiness is, and if it's all worth it.
The vast vast majority of FFXIV players don't want you to join them at endgame. They want to join YOU during key points in the story. They want to be there with you when you get to specific story moments to face a boss. They want to hear how you feel as you journey through the same story they did. You can't have that shared community when you eliminate all sense of a shared experience.
WoW never asked you to confront yourselves with these questions, but even FFXIV's doing so wouldn't hit the mark without first taking you on a journey.
Tbh i'm a sprout and I am absolutely loving this game. I'm taking it slow, and immersing myself in the world and it is very much holding my interest.
How can you expect to understand whats going on in a continuous story if you jump to the end? The game is journey, the journey is the story. Everything is unlocked through the story and everything is connected to the story. This game isn't about combat and a lot of the time, combat is a last resort because this game is a living breathing world, not closed off expac after closed off expac like WoW.
And 50% of ARR isn't an accomplishment, you basically played less than 10% of the game's story. There's so much you don't know yet because they've only given you some of the basic groundwork for the story. Beating ARR is more of an accomplishment because you at least have an understanding of how the game works on a fundamental level by then.
I started with a trial account, fell in love with the game, purchased it knowing that I would have to pay a sub. It was such a freshing change from WoW which I had played since vanilla. Yes, I agree there are some annoying parts ( but that is true of ALL the games I have played) but all in all its worth the occasional annoyance. I lost my sprout icon ( "cries") quite a while ago and have several jobs maxxed at this point and am looking forward to Dawntrail! You really need the base story for the rest to make sense. My advice is not to skip content as it important to the story. The journey is well worth the rewards!
like many might have said... the ARR the world building. For an example, in the hideout, those characters do come back and do live... they tell something different each time you go back. There is part that you might have missed when you did the 3 cities dungeons. There was an adventurer groups in the background and even one of them said that you are an inspiration for her. She will come back :) But, yup, the game is pretty good to close a lot of the loops they started.
It's true, but the problem is, most players who experienced that took their time to look through cause the game was new. However, with people trying to catch up with friends or to the latest expansion, there will be people who skip the background characters, and a lot of the world building are just really dry jokes that most people will never appreciate.
His video is a good example. The whole banquet questline is dumb. He could have said he wishes to test you and want you to prove yourself, and add a spin to the quest to make it more epic... and not "go do this grocery shopping cause we wanted to host a party for this important person coming (surprise, its you and your companion!)" and then send you all over the world to a bunch of important Company of Heroes NPCs just for them to tell you to do minor chores for them and not even something that really tests you.
It's poor legacy story writing that is meant as filler content that SE should remove for new players or at least change some of the wording. Getting the cheese is fine since it has a good dungeon to it and goblins are meant as a funny race in the first place, but the other 3 fetch quests should be re-done to make it more interesting. You shouldn't tell new players to sit through a daily grocery chore list just to see something that will only become important 4 expansion later.
@@ArieysValentine it's a complicated balance.
The only way ARR can work now, for players who just want to meet their friends, is rework it entirely.
It's old school and most people have no patience for it.
In other MMO's you just skip old content, you can't do that in XIV because the way story is told so they have but one choice.
Or lose potential players who aren't exactly keen to go through a 10 years old game
@@sophiastorm8616it not just arr,im in stormblood and im still doing this same fetch quest grocery list stuff.the story is so overrated.its doesn't do anything and its this plot is the same as multiple ff games.i played ff16 and couldn't help but think,this is the same plot as ff14
@@holy9781 Opinions are just that, but I can tell you this much. The story in XIV has nothing to do with XVI.
The MSQ in STB is also full of fetch quests? It is, less than ARR but still a lot of those.
You'll have less and less of those as you progress through the next expansions.
Last but not the least, the overrated story, I can't tell you much, you're in STB, so, half way through the story and you really have little idea of what exactly the story is about.
No idea if you are an FF player, but if you are, you should know exactly how FF stories work and progress.
In STB, you're pretty much like Jon Snow....you know nothing.
And again, so no doubt about it stays in your mind: There are no similarities whatsoever, at all, between XIV and XVI stories, none.
Not the themes, not the world, not the character types and archetypes, not their story arcs. The scope, the politics, the structure even. Absolutely nothing.
They both have chocobos...
@@sophiastorm8616Did you like the story tho? I played though ARR and thought it was alrigghtt. Some cooler parts but mostly alright sometimes boring story but i have a lot of hope for the expansions. plus the music is crazy good
For me the main problem is the age and size of the game. I can’t play much every day and I have the feeling that all the players are far ahead and I will never be able to catch up with them in order to be with everyone in the latest content.
I think you’re misunderstanding the game. One of the reasons that the later expansions are so good is because they’re laying down the groundwork now, introducing characters and communities along with the conflicts that drive them. Then you get to see your characters impact on that world over time.
The base story the first time you play through feels awesome at least for me, but after it's not nearly as fun the second time but it goes faster than any other expansion!
The dungeons to me are quite boring and would rather not have to do them, it's one reason I avoid dungeon roulette etc. as I can't be arsed to bother with them.
About the "skipping expansions" point: currently, it's a service you pay for(separately from job level boosts), but the devs are actually looking into making it free and available from character Creation. It will also skip the story, but you won't have to worry about them much thanks to the New Game Plus feature(Maybe people from your streams already talked about it?)
Also, there's a bit of a difference(perhaps dissonance in some POVs) in how you enter new zones in FFXIV compared to other MMOs. Because your access to zones is tied to the story(you can actually already go to some of them without having to unlock them but you don't really have any incentives to yet), it permits other liberties, like starting next expansion(Heavensward) you get a little cutscene each time you go to a new zone where your character walks in(with their current companions) and the camera does different shots and pans while a narrator describes things and the BGM starts. It's the same thing as when you enter an instance but with a bit more to it. It's more similar to how single-player RPGs or other stort-heavy games do it than MMOs in that respect(I've seen in some zones Star Wars:the Old Republic does it too).
Hope that helps!
If you want another distraction from the msq, you can always try PvP.
you are the first person i've heard talk about PvP. does my gear scale up? is everyone on the same playing field or will i get absolutely destroyed? 💥
@@moopliss Everyone is scaled, it's basically a whole side system. Plus it gives decent-good exp too. It was my main pass-time at endgame.
An interesting hurdle for FF14 coming up is selling new players on a game with 100 levels and multiple story arcs that can be the length of a whole netflix series binge. And story skips aren't that attractive generally, spending money to get to the far end of a game you may not even know you like, with soon 3 expansions that also need to be purchased on alongside.
I feel like the devs are kicking the can down the road for now on making the game accessible despite its own towering size. See how the game does or doesn't grow for Dawntrail, before seeing if its a priority issue for the next one.
But the game really is a sandtrap for levels 1-50. Max level players end up in the really low level dungeons all the time via the roulette dungeon run system. Its just where a lot of players are kinda stuck milling about. And as much as the fans love the optimistic spin of how (with a sub) there is hundreds of hours of things to chase in the base subscription, we still need a good population of max levels players.
I'm sure the devs appreciate sprout-chan, who stopped the MSQ at level 33 to go spend 2 months working on their fishing log and grind out outfits in the golden saucer, for their sub. But they need people to sell these expansions too.
I think the issue is that people compare it to other mmos where the only worthwhile content is max level. So seeing that would be extremely daunting. But alot of the best content in the game is the progression, not the end goal
@@BeanSandwiches This is the issue right here. Most MMOs the grind is the content and the content is the grind. So endgame is just all grind all for a few points of extra power to get the perfect rolled item.
Then you come to XIV....and the grind is not there at end game. That's always been the complaint I've heard from skippers that there's no real reason to do the savage fights again once you get all your best in slot pieces. I mean what did they expect WoW or BDO types of grinding...FFXIV is a Story first game and the story serves the content.
@@grygaming5519 couldnt agree more with thisl its is a valid ciriticsm that ff14 doesnt cater to the old school way of mmo thinking BUT its one that id never ever want to see be drasticly changed. thjis game held me from jump even during the weaker story parts of evben stormblood because i had stuff to do and story to explore and love the world. Endgame came later
Allowing players to start any expansion would kill the game. Half the characters and concepts throughout the expansions would make zero sense to new players.
ARR sets the base for who people are etc. The true fun doesn't really start until post ARR however, and I agree that some of the 'delivery' style quests are very boring though.
There's characters from ARR in many expansions into the future.
The problem with WoW is it's aggressively dying player base and a money hungry developer, combined with an impatient community that want to 'world first' and get through content as quick as possible.
I can only promise and hope that you continue to work your way through FF14 ARR. You've probably heard from 1000 people now, is that ITS WORTH IT.
@@ScribbleNuts lol clueless.
Dawntrail is a fantastic expansion that was released last week and is being called one of their best yet.
Interesting video you have here. I would I agree with you 100% but until you'd experience Endwalker. I would suggest revisiting this video after finishing Endwalker and see if you still hold the same opinion.
now i'm curious what happens in endwalker👀
@@moopliss I played ARR after beating EW and had a much better experience with the context that comes full circle. But I'm also of the opinion that I shouldn't have had to play HUNDREDS of hours of MSQ and force myself to engage with what was a slog for me to get a pay off that late. It's not a gamer's job to wait hundreds of hours for the game to get good .. that's the game's job to entice new players to find out more. I hope you manage to get that far and also make another video about your experience!
The funniest thing is all the anime avatar people defending FFXIV as if he personally attacked them. The dude didn't really enjoy FFXIV and apparently that is a crime.
Started on Sunday and I'm loving it. At the same time I am a completionist and I am doing every quest.
I'm starting to think I should start skipping some of the smaller quests and just do mainline ones
Don't do any side quests.
Just do the MSQ and the quests with the Blue backgrounds because they unlock stuff. Side quests are there for extra lore and leveling alternate jobs.
From my from my experience, being told it gets better later on isn't good. The beginning story is boring because how fast I level up. I skip the side quests to make up for it, which is the wrong thing to do because side quests helps filled the world. Besides that everythings great. The the class, fighting, dungeons, and especially the crafting system.
Yeah overleveling can definitely be an issue - I ended up at one point picking up another job or two to mitigate that, so that might help but it also could take a while to level it depending on how far in you are
yeah, you got it. MSQ should NOT be shotgunned back-to-back-to-back. FATEs, Hunt Log, Sightseeing Log, Gold Saucer, Crafting/Gathering, the second you get bored, there's a WHOLE WORLD of content to engage with when the wall-to-wall dialogue turns you off. that's how I did it, never got bored ONCE in ARR (and this was *before* they trimmed the number of quests down)
The lala mafia was after the guy who used the purple shampoo (fantasia). It was so funny that stream
I wasn’t hooked into the story until end of patch 2.55, but then I was like damn this is sweet. Halfway through Heavensward already cuz now I need to know what happens next
As someone with over 2k hrs and in love with this game, I also haven't been the biggest fan of the story, its like watching a very long anime with very big highlights but the actual episode to episode is just serviceable. Theres alot to love with this game outside of the msq, thats just the runway you need to run for new content, keep at it. You may fall in love with raiding, social, explore zones, etc content.
I for one fell in love with raiding and have done a few ults by now which has been the most fun and stressful content ive ever experienced in a game haha.
the end game content of groups fighting a boss is what caught my eye to start, but i had no idea i had to run multiple marathons before i can partake in that content 🏃
@@moopliss end game make up very little of the game. And do require knowing the base parts of the story and each expac to do them. they do shoot off into their own story beats but its a branch off the main path. Stepping away from the "endgame is the real game" mindset helps a lot in ff14.
@@moopliss You can do ARR extremes and Coils of Bahahmut in Party Finder or with the XIV community you have here. It is early content but people still love doing early game raiding syched down just for the fun and thrill of it - and it can give you that raiding experience.
I think for me, I was introduced to it by a friend who played and knew I loved story. I wasn't really told anything else outside of that. My previous MMO experiences was FFXI and a little bit of WoW so I kind of expected the base game story wise to be what it is in each MMO because each base game story is usually "just okay" imo. My mentality going in was just seeing how things improved by each patch/expansion and such and how the writers take with them moving forward. For me, ARR is like reading the start of The Lord of the Rings or 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and you're near the start where you have to get through yet another song describing some random thing sung by a hobbit or yet another marine biology lesson in 20,000. I agree it is dense and dry, but because of that, I get a better understanding of the viewpoints and values that each character has and how it evolves over the story through each expansion. For me, I kind of got into the story early on during the dungeon in the mines cuz I was like... "Wait...why are we putting down a slave rebellion of trolls? These Monerterists that hire us don't seem to be good people..." And then in a short moment when Thancred (I think) mocked my character for blindly completing tasks for random people, something clicked for me. But that's me, everyone is different.
Now that I am up-to-date, I really enjoy seeing what the writers build off of which gets introduced in ARR and other expansions afterwards.
THERE'S A JUMPING SECTION IN THE GOLDEN SAUCER?!!!!! As another bored sprout ploughing through the MSQ, I thank you for this info. I'm immediately off to do this now.
Thing is, the ARR MSQ *was* revised. That pre-Titan section is *shorter* than it used to be. But they can't just *not* have you go through that. Those characters show up again later. More than once. Everything in ARR is important later. It's world-building or introducing characters or presenting character traits that make sense later. For instance, the whole side quest section relating to the strain of grapevines and wine-making? That is Very Important for Lore Reasons relating to the character of the Warrior of Light.
It'll make sense later, but there are reasons why my shorthand description for the Warrior of Light as presented in the game is "Highly Food Motivated Chaos Gremlin with more Compassion than Sense".
yeah, a big difference between XIV and, per his examples: WoW, is that the WoW expansions seem to be their own stories (and XIV doesn't have an entire chunk of its lore hidden away in comics) and you can jump into them all at any point and have just as much context (read: None) as any other one, whereas the XIV stories and characters carry over through expansions, you meet someone in ARR and suddenly they return in a more important role later on. ARR is meant to be the build-up of your story as an adventurer, people shouldn't just expect to start a game and automatically have everyone know them, trust them, and call them the savior of the world as a brand new player. You do odd jobs, fetch quests, and make connections that matter in the long run. This is actually a relatively common complaint because some folks don't like having to do the grunt work to earn the renown.
I started playing midshadowbringrs and the best advide someone gave me as a sprout was to not race to the end of the msq, the story is a journey best savored and there's nothing you're missing out on at max level.
I have my own issues with ffxiv, but I think it's interesting everyone brings up that particular criticism of the guy who sends you off to get this to prepare a meal. Imo it's actually a bit more nuanced and memorable than people describe it.
You go see the leader of a band of "great adventurers" and he sends you on tasks that give the members of his old party a chance to measure your worth. Yeah, the tasks could be better, but there is more to it on a story level than just busy work. I didn't really mind any of the story of arr until I got to the pre patch content leading up to heavensward. That felt pretty tedious for me.
Overall, I do think the story approach is good for the game. Some people you meet early on keep coming back for roles later on, and the core party you spend a lot of time with develops massively.
As someone who just recently finished ARR and currently going through the patches towards Heavensword, the MSQ was so boring until the later half but the boss fights were fun and im hyped to start the next expansion. Been enjoying trying out the other classes like rouge and fishing.
I just started a week or so ago and it is a lot to take in. I know the game is old, but the silent interaction between players and NPCs feels weird and the filler quests for the MSQ can be distracting and make about zero sense sometimes. Overall though I like the game play and pace. Eventually I'll catch up to all the cool kids :)
The story was ok back in the day, but now in 2024 it's rly hard to enjoy it when they serve it the way it is. 2 characters with no animations locked in a cutscene for few minutes, mostly without voice acting (even in msq) and at the end everyone have to nod. That's 90% of MSQ.
i've heard people choose to replay the MSQ. have you made it all the through? if so, how many times?
AAR has taught me how to skip:
Now when I face the villains I can say, with FULL CONFIDENCE, "Who Are You...?" 😂
I get the feeling of wanting to start wherever instead of in the three starter towns, especially for migrants from other MMOs. The reason this game will never do that is, like you said, this is a Final Fantasy game first and a MMO second.
For other things to do, I liked the crafting and gathering questlines. In my opinion, some of their stories are better than the questlines for the combat classes. I particularly liked the weaver questline, but they all have their own charm.
Later down the line, relic weapons are another great side track. Each one is a massive grind at the end of each expansion, but comes with a questline with it's own set of recurring characters. The relics from later expansions even add new zones that completely change how the game is played. Most importantly, glowy weapons.
Was doing a story dungeon (tam tera deepcroft or something) and while witching the cutscene with the black robed guy I see the pop up that the battle was started...and finished. I was playing a healer. So should I expect all players to not care about sprouts first times and that healers are kinda useless unless their is a big pull?
People who rush in without waiting for new people to watch the cutscene are considered to be pretty rude and aren't the norm in my experience. It's unfortunate you had to experience that.
The game now has a system that let's you go with an NPC party for every story dungeon and that's what I recommend when you go through one for the first time. Not only will you not have to worry about that, but it also ensures that you won't be carried and have to learn how to play the game
@@JoaderR I have tried the NPC and for the most part I enjoy it, but at least for the low level dungeons it doesn't seem very helpful for healers. The Npcs follow you so you dont really get to learn how to follow a tanks lead, and the pulls tend to be very small compared to what I see in pc groups.
@@SooothatsDonald
Yeah, that's true. That's kinda the problem with the NPC party. The dungeons also end up taking even longer.
Unfortunately, I don't really have any tips regarding this, because that really is just how it is and all we can hope for is for an update on their AI, but idk if that will happen anytime soon.
I also think this is an even bigger issue when playing as a Healer, because you can just pull more as a Tank and you can also bring more and do more optimal damage as a DPS.
Speaking of, have you seen JoCat's "crap guide to FFXIV". I highly recommend checking it out. It was made 3 years ago, but it's still very helpful!
I think it might depends on the server. On crystal ppl get mad if you pull while a sprout is in a cut scene
@@MasqeradeKiss
It's mostly the same in Twintania
Ah... You've gotten to the "Cheese Subplot." It gets woven in a bit later with Longstop (Hard) and then again in Heavensward. [I use "Cheese Subplot" because it's non-spoilery, and because when I mentioned it to a friend who had gotten to this point in the game their reaction was, "There's a whole *subplot*?" It's also just hilarious to remember that this entire sub-plot starts over a Goblin Cheese Recipe.] The team worked on condensing things, but they still had a huge ammount of information that they had to set up for later. In fact, some of that info is hidden behind the Extreme Clears. And originally it doesn't seem all that much, but it makes later points hit harder.
But I think Jocat said, sometimes you *do* just need a story skip. It's not what should be your first option, or even your second, but if you really need to, skip it to get to a point you think you'll enjoy. It's more important to have fun with the game than to do it "correctly." If you're not having fun with a game, that is the worst way to interact with it.
I think a lot of people forget that this is A FINAL FANTASY GAME, a mainline entry. Not WoW, or ESO, or GW2. Final Fantasy games are story-heavy rpgs, with rich lore, insteresting characters, and overall very good world building (with some infamous exceptions). You can't skip the story like you can't skip the story in FF9 or FF10.
If people wanted to play 14 to dash trough the story, and be done with the game in 2 months, then, to put it very bluntly, I suggest they go play another MMO.
Yeah but why the story is so bad then ? It's by far the worst story I follow in my life. So much lost time on random quest or delivering. I feel insulted when I'm playing the MSQ in ARR
@@Haarwyvern dunno dude, I'm getting through stormblood, people overhyped heavensward so much to me but it was meh, good, not that good. maybe peak for an mmorpg, but it was just meh. Stormblood is once again boring. I'm clocking at 500 hours in because I took my time doing other stuff and levelling other classes at the same time. people keep telling me that with shadowbringers it really gets good, and I hope it does... I just want to have fun doing dungeons and raiding. That's why I like mmorpgs, and this should technically be the best mmorpg to me because I love FF with all my heart, but I don't know... I want to love this game so much but I feel like I'm forcing myself to.
you really dont need to worry about being at endgame. imo
The savage world race exists, getting BIS for ultimates... the endgame is ffxiv biggest strength.
As someone who’s played it for 5+ years I agree that the ARR story is a drag. It took me almost a whole
year to finish just ARR because I was mostly by myself even when I was in an FC. And that was before they shrunk the post ARR patch quests. Also black mage is fun and it’s class quests story is my fav out of all the job quests😂. Cocobussy crawling on the ceiling like a gremlin
Correction, BLM is not fun. It BECOMES fun. Around 56. And more fun around 63. And then stays fun. But DT had brought some decent changes. Loss of the Enhanced Flare hurts a bit, but other changes are sweet. Especially Manafront which is "now do the damaging part of your rotation AGAIN".
But yeah, BLM is the WORST choice for Sprouting through ARR. I would know. I did that. Terrible mistake.
@@nemamiah7832 I didn’t start out with black mage, that came later. In fact I was put off by it to begin with, but I agree that it gets so much better in the later level, I was just stating the job quest story is my favorite out of all of them. I actually joined as a lancer/dragoon and I recommend that job to start because of its easy rotation in easy levels (albeit fairly boring) but it was easy enough to get me through story.
So glad I'm not alone on this one lol, started a playthrough for the first time and MY GOD it's so slow.
i probably wouldn't continue if it wasn't for the folks joining me on stream. the FF14 community is awesome, and that's what keeps me going💪
Find a good FC and make friends, that's the whole point
The reason why the main story is important is because those characters you help will follow you trough every expansion, you can click past any dialog of the side characters, you won't ever see them again, focus on the main characters Like Yshtola, Thancre, Urianger, the elf twins etc.
The problem with starting anywhere is the expansions build off one another, so it'd be like opening a book to a random chapter and just reading. There are surprise reveals where you'd just be like "who?" My friend who skips all cutscenes finishes expansions in a day, so there is a way to get through it fast if you don't want to read through it which doesn't require the ability to start at any expansion. But if you want to know what's going on in chapter 15 the only way to do that is to read chapters 1-14 or skip it all and watch a summary. That works too. 🤷🏾♀
I started playing in the middle of last year when it was in between expansions. I also started with free trial but when the 3rd person tried to trade me outfits or helpful gear and couldn’t I bought the game and also learned that once you buy the game you lose the free trial. Don’t regret it now but I was bummed out at first to lose that. There is a “gentleman detective” quest line that is hilarious in ARR. Its title is “The Rise and Fall of Gentlemen” and it is located in southern thanalan at x:21.5 y:39.1. This quest helped me to get the laughs and able to complete the last leg of ARR! Check it out if you want a break from MSQ! Need level 50 class.
The first time that I tried FF14 a few years ago I thought there was too much text, the English was too difficult for me, story didn't intrigue me, disliked how slow the actions were and didn't like the graphics. Then like many others got a WoW-burnout and kept hearing all the praise about FF14 so I gave it another try. I ended up doing the Arr story 3x, the first time I didn't read anything, second time I followed along but missed a few details which made me feel lost and the third time I took my time, read everything until I understood, leveled other jobs inbetween, explored cities and met new people. I had such a good time!! Didn't have that much fun in any game for many years. The third time I did ARR story was actually the time I enjoyed it the most, surprisingly. Yes it has some slow parts, like the quests to get to Titan. I also had a difficult time getting thru 2.1-2.3 without constant breaks. It still had good and fun parts and imo you can make it more fun by just enjoying the game on your own time, not feeling like you've got to catch up or rush it. It gets better!
I get that it can be off putting to new players, at first it did that to me too. This isn't only a problem in FF14, WoW struggles the same when it comes to attracting and keeping new players. Skipping the story doesn't look like an option tbh, there's too much you'll miss out on and it takes away from that feeling of being an adventurer exploring this new world. Like in WoW, chromie time and making people choose in which expansion they'll level up has so many flaws. Atleast in WoW each expansion feels separate and you can enjoy it without knowing previous lore but to do that in FF14 would be such a pity. I guess it helps to approach the game and story with a different mentality, the same one we all had when we started playing games. We didn't really know what we were getting into but just enjoyed the journey. And when it comes to FF14 you just got to trust when they say it's worth it, because it really is. :)
I got through ARR by breaking it up with my job ADHD. I didn't level all the jobs to 50 before finishing ARR, but i did have them all unlocked and had some time played with them.
best i can say for new players is go at your own pace and honestly if you are bored at any point in the story dont be afraid to skip the dialogue most "important" things are voiced custscenes/ cutscenes in general. this is coming from someone really into lore who reads every little thing
To me, ARR is one massive tutorial arc. It's where you learned about the world. It's where you learn all the basic dungeon mechanics. It's where you learn basic job action. Everything got moved because of this tutorial arc. So for me personally, I appreciate ARR story arc even if I don't particularly enjoy it either. It's there for a reason, and the reason became real clear real quick afterwards. As HW has shown us.
The game of FFXIV starts at level 1. The MSQ is a journey, the world unlocks contextually. That's the _strength_ of the game. It's not a problem that your friends are at a higher level or in a different zone, because they can literally sync down to your level to play with you.
What CBU3 must do is create a new entry point in Dawntrail, though. Including a proper introductory path to some key characters, to the combat and to combat language.
Im a relatively new player (havent reached a year yet, stilla sprout), and tbh I found the new player experience of ff14 a LOT better than most mmos. It doesnt feel like Im thrown into an environment where I meed to know everything at once. I feel like I can take my time. Im only just in post SHB atm because ive taken my time and had fun engaging in the side activities and community. ARR has its issues, but its a good introduction to the world and sets up basically every other story, while also teaching you the basics of the game. And I came into the game more or less alone, I had two friends already at max level but I didnt really need much help. I was quite content just exploring, doing the story and I made some friends along the way. I dont really get why people say its a bad new player experience. If you genuinely do not enjoy the story and that, I dont think ff14 is the right mmo for you, there are plenty of other mmos that will throe you into stuff faster if thats your thing
I first started Final Fantasy 14 in March 2022. When I started I didn’t even know what an MMO was. I’ll be honest it was the story in ARR kept me coming back and trying to figure it out because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. it was a steep learning curve and I needed the “slower” content to keep me from being overwhelmed. Even though I still was :-)
The biggest complain my friend has is "All I do is talking to ppl left and right." which... I can't lie ARR is terrible if you want (like him) more combat and action than talking.
Hi! so I've been playing since 1.0 and since you asked for advice and gave some great tips on what else you can do in the game I thought I would add to it. i'll be spoiler free
0. The moon symbol on your EXP bar is "resting exp" when you log out in a "sanctuary" (anywhere with a teleport crystal) it starts storing, it stores exp and gives you that stored EXP on top of your regular exp when you are leveling
1. Hunt log, weekly hunt marks, S, A, and B ranks. great source of EXP, rare items, minions, mounts and meeting people for the trains
2. Grand Company gives access to squadrons, you hire NPC to go into dungeons with you, or on mission, you get EXP boosting items and free teleport tickets, you also have access to the trust system which is the same but you don't have to hire NPC
3. FATEs have connected FATES, the harder ones give you mounts, minions, weapons and gear, each expansion has 2 "hidden" FATE bosses that drop items for exclusive gear, weapons, and minions
4. Beast tribes are great for EXP, minions, orchestrations, materia, and mounts. some are for crafting (great way to lvl them) some are for battle. ARR has 5 or 6 and the other exp have 2 or 3
5. Leeves are a great way to lvl fast for any job, gatherer, or crafter and they give rare items
6. at HW u unlock Wonderus trials, specialty crafting and gathering, and the ?"favor"? system which give rare items that can sell for 10+mil on the market board.
7. each exp has "Deep Dungeons" they give rare items, EXP, mounts, relics, glamours, achievements, and more ARR example. Palace of the Dead
8. fishing has ocean fishing and big fishing which is a fun thing to do and great exp and can win mounts, rare titles like "of dragons deep" rare fish, and level up quite fast
9. Daily roulette (once unlocked) are great way to get gil, grand company seals, and exp
10. Each expansion has relics for the all duties of hand and land and jobs. they are unique in look that you don't see anywhere else in the game.
11. each exp has a zone building quest line, excluding ARR, that changes how it looks while you progress through, they give you rare items, gil, mounts only obtainable through them and gear.
12. once you're high enough you can do extreme, savage, ultimate, and unreal versions of trials for exclusive mounts, weapons, and titles.
13. there is a gardening, decorating and housing system, you can also rent an apartment in one of the zones (there are 3 ARR zones, 1 HW zone and 1 StB zone) or rent a room in your free company house
14. in the "inn" which is able to be accessed in most cities has the Glamour system, orchestration player, armor chest, a journal that let's you replay cut scenes of all quests that have one
there is plenty more but as you can see it's a long list. I hope this helps anyone out and please enjoy the game! Dawntrail will bring a complete graphic update so it wont look PS3 like anymore :)
wow, thanks! if i end up reinstalling the game, these tips will help🙌
I started playing about 3 years ago, arr was indeed a slog but i was told by my friend that ff14 is an investment, it wont be great at first but you'll grow to love it a lot, and I did. I unlocked stuff like mounts for faster travel, glamour to make my character look better, minions that follow me around and do weird stuff, the boss fights got better the story improved, and before I knew it im learning about raiding and ocean fishing and eureka and housing. It feels like theres just so much to do now that i might have time for it now but starting off i remember asking was this worth it and in hindsight yes 100% it was, so as my friend did for me ill say you'll get to a place if you keep going that makes you say it was worth the effort
It is true ARR MSQ is still a grind, but the emotional moments in HW, the Wayward Daughter in SB, the tragedy in the SHB and the Walk in EW make you go “I could redo ARR MSQ to relive this again”
There is a lot of character building in ARR, characters that you like, characters you hate, characters that start and grow over time. Your ingame relationships with these will culminate in different parts of the game, different expansions. It’s that bonds you make early that tug at your heartstrings the hardest when the time comes, and the grind is worth it.
Most of my new player friends liked the base game as a basic RPG beginning, but every single one that has gotten to endgame got so ridiculously grabbed by the transition into Heavensward that they absolutely dive bombed the story from there
I realize this is late, but I've played other FF games before. Like Nintendo NES FF games, so I'm not unfamiliar with the series. I'm also a Lost Ark refugee.
So, I started FF 14 two days before the maintenance, then got the story skip, the gunbreaker level up, and the early access to Dawntrail. Let me tell you about my experience so far. When my character woke up in the end of the last expansion, he was at level 90 with 660 gear. BUT, he wasn't wearing it. I had to put it on him through the armory. So I go through the story line then I hit the dungeon(?) that required item level 660. I was at 603. ??? After two hours of dicking around I finally found a menu where I could add a second earring and I think I was missing a ring, too. All of a sudden, I'm at 660. Also, I'm doing level 20 damage, because they set me up with a set of skills that were all level 20. I knew Jack about how to run this "job" so I ended up, after dying to the main boss multiple times, looking for how to play this "job". But they're all pre-Dawntrail. So interfaces are a little different and all of the new skills aren't in the pre-sets. Also, while the pop ups that show when I start the game tell me to do some daily things and give an explanation about them, I had no idea what any of these things were. So I ended up with some friendly players on my first level up raid, they helped out immensely. I still have the sprout symbol over me, don't know when that goes away. Also, I had to stop at another "dungeon" because I kept getting curb stomped by the boss. I went back to the character I started to level up and I'm going to have to get him up to 90 just so I can learn how to play his "job." I don't recommend anyone just jumping into the higher tier stuff and skipping everything. You won't know how to play your "job" and learning as you go probably won't go as you expect.
* Try an ocean fishing trip in Limsa.
* Interesting tidbit: A lot of the HC raiders are also HC fishers, because it kinda requires the same skills. Learning how to catch a specific rare fish, is similar to learning a new raid mechanic.
* The cheese quest with the dungeon is my personal favorite in ARR, not everyday you have to kill a dragon to get a wheel of cheese.
* ARR sets up the rest of the expansions. You probably could have skipped a lot of reading some quests i think the more important parts happen past level 35. However the real slugfest is the post ARR msq until Heavensward.
* There is always an option to buy a skip to the current expansion.
i know its a really special game but its the one MMO i havnt been able to get through. Ive played BDO,GW,GW2,ESO,Albion,Runescape and im a mainstay WoW player. I just really cant get past the massive story to catchup with people. i get burnt out its the one MMO i wish i got into when it went through its rebirth phase rather then trying to play the game 8 years later i know familiarity has alot to do with it aswel;. i dont mind being locked behind a story but i do mind being locked behind numerous novels.
this is where I remind you that back abit now they actually removed about 30% of all the msq quests in ARR.
But if there is one thing I can say as a long time player.
Everything gets better the long you play. And I mean literally everything.
Yeah i took like 3 breaks from ff14 and i am still not done with arr. Idk if i ever will. The moment i resub i will play for a few days and then get bored while constantly looking at the mission list how many quests i have left to leave this slogfest. Most classes only get fun if you reach like level 50. THe first 30 levels are mostly click 1 or 2 abilities. The gameplay also feels very slow in the earlier levels. in WoW it feels way more dynamic and fluid
which job do you play in FF14? do you know how much percentage wise of ARR you have gotten through so far?
@@moopliss I play Samurai and and Summoner. I am on the last patch before Heavensward. So i am on the post ARR Content Patches. Samurai is fun now but he starts at level 50. Summoner took a while until it was fun
loved the video,
when i was doing msq, hearing YoshiP state that we should take the game at our own pace and not binge it, since content patches will always take time to make really made me slow down. taking the story slowly and enjoying the smaller things. Its a nice way to put the bar down on the action we expect from action packed stories, which ff14 isnt. A nice realization from this is that some stories undermine themselves by not giving themselves a breather from time to time. Otherwise we dont the grounding of relatable, daily life moments.
As a person who quit twice before sticking to it.. it's because it takes 40 hours before anything slightly difficult showed up
I started playing back when Shadowbringers first released after my friend spent months convincing me to give it a try, needed something fresh to play as the current patch at the time for World of Warcraft (8.2: Rise of Azshara) had left me feeling burnt out by the upkeep of their borrowed power system and I felt like I could no longer keep up with it's daily demands.
Even though the A Realm Reborn questline felt like it took an eternity to complete and eventually move on to Heavensward, I have very much enjoyed every minute I've played the game since first trying it. I've never really set foot in any of the hardest endgame content but to me that's how I choose to enjoy the game nowadays: less focus on the difficulty and more on the social aspect as it's such a welcoming and inclusive community in comparison to it's competitors on the market.
Akiza Enishi (LIGHT - Phoenix)
Ive been playing since Stormblood as a content creator I watch has been hyping it up since ARR and I've only recently hit post-ARR due to these issues - it took until Akh Afah Ampethere for me to truly fall in love with the game and the story *is* setting up cool things finally. I'd say the 50% mark is probably the worst of ARR - taking breaks to do side content and experiencing the game one expansion at a time instead of rushing is absolutely the best way to get through it.
As I hear you giving your thoughts on FF14 I realised: he's right. Absolutely right in fact.
And I sat through a lot hours reading the dialogue, running errands etc in the game.
The word that wants to roll off my tongue is: pacing.
Reliving the memories of playing FF14 up to Endwalker is that we as modern humans really live in fast pace.
I came back for FF14 whenever I could because it was exactly doing this: slowing me down to a calmer pace.
Excluding raids, FF14 can help go at a slower, more enjoyable pace. May be it is a good thing this game can do this for so many people.
The decision is yours.
Cheers
I was finally able to jump in when it was released on Xbox. The realm reborn msq was such a drag. Enjoyable setting up everything, but it really was more of chore than anything. I did half of heaven’s ward. I skip storm blood, and I fully completed shadow bringers, and holy crap. That was the best time of my life.
If you ever make it to Dawntrail, let’s play together sometime! I’m planning on eventually grinding achievements and will be around for a while haha
I have been playing since Stormblood and I have always been one expansion behind. During Shadowbringer I played Stormblood. Endwalker I played SB. Now we got Dawntrail and I’m just finishing Endwalker. And I’m a die hard fan. You don’t need to be up to date to enjoy. I take breaks on occasion but I always come back.
I made the mistake to rush some side content from FFXIV and now I regret because everything is interconnected. Following the msq is what makes us love and hate some characters and this makes all the difference. Even being behind the latest content isn't a problem. You'll still find ppl to run dungeons and make side content (because it's easier for veterans).
A bit late to the video but if you read it then here it goes:
So I have these two friends who are huge fans of the game. They got me into FF14 again 6 months ago(I quit once in 2022 or something as I was busy with Lost Ark) after much pestering. And I had exactly same experience, if not worse, in ARR like you did. Prolly worse because I did most of the questing alone and hated the slop. For me the breakthrough happened after post ARR (when you beat Ultima weapon) when I absolutely gave up on the story and started crafting. My friends thought I would quit the game at that point but crafting was like a mini puzzle and a hoarding minigame all in one. I love collecting items in games, especially if they are useful in crafting. And so I did exactly that.
Fast forward a bit and I somehow reached Heavensward after swearing at various characters. Midway through HW I realized that Post ARR was a horribly shoddy attempt at wrapping up the loose ends from OG 1.x patches and absolutely hated the game again. But somehow the game itself was just so endearing that I stayed. And somehow I was at the end of HW. And it was such a memorable experience. Suddenly the story got good enough that you don't realize how smoothly the plot progresses. After I finished the last trial boss, I had some free time so my friends got me into the first normal raid series (not Alliance. As of now, Crystal Tower is mandatory clear for ARR completion). And I think that's when I started falling in love with the game. The experience was nothing like the previous trials and raids. Especially the last raid of this series where even veterans struggled and we wiped bunch of times but kept going.
In the middle of all of this, I also got to experience the Crystal Tower series and I didn't particularly find it a lot of fun as there were 24 players and shit happened on the screen that made no sense. Still I had friends so it wasn't bad taking pics after each raid.
I think I fell in love with the game properly during post stormblood when a certain sequence happens. Depends on person to person but I think that sequence was absolutely fantastic. When I reached Shadowbringers, all the effort I put into doing all the raids and quests started paying off. As someone who loves world building, everything you learnt in the past expacs finally starts being more heavy.
And finally I reached Endwalker last month. And I don't think it's right to call it the best expac in a vacuum. Imo EW can only feel amazing if and only if you have attachment to previous expacs. So EW was a fantastic expac for me. I honestly think it's an experience because EW rewards you for all the time you put into the game. Whether it be raiding or any other misc activities. So the only thing I would advise new players is that while they are dragging themselves through the slog of MSQ, they should also consider giving the newly available items a full chance. Whether it be crafting, new classes, beast tribes, leves, your class quests, fates, connected yellow quests through the aether current blue ones, etc. Everything you do in the game has a payoff in EW. It will definitely suck to be stuck behind in DT but DT is gonna be here for the next 2-3 years at the very least. No point in ruining your experience to reach EW now only to join the list of whiners who cry about no content once you catch up and finish all the major DT combat content.
Edit: on a side note, I did play this game along with my sibling. So us competing over stuff and duoing trial bosses/hunts was also an experience unique to us. I only bought the game when I realised there are things I wanna do with my sibling and I am staying here for a long time.
i read all comments, so thanks for watching💪
awesome to see you played the gamr with your sibling. are you both jumping into dawntrail?
Sprout here,currently at the end of stormblood and getting close to shadowbringers, and I've had a blast thus far
I’ve leveled two different toons in FFXIV but lost interest twice. First time I leveled a white mage up into the first part of Heavensward. Second time, on a white mage again, I got halfway through Stormblood and quit again. The first problem I see is how solo the game is designed to be played. Even if you level with another person, the class specific quests are done solo. The cut scenes are all solo. It feels disjointed to actually play with another person while leveling. It feels very awkward because the game seems designed as a solo experience.
Second issue I had were the dungeons. During the base game, the dungeons are SO simple there isn’t an issue going in with a group even if you aren’t familiar with the specific mechanics of each boss. Even as the healer, I didn’t feel any pressure to look up guides before doing a dungeon required by the main story questljne (MSQ). This quickly changes as you get into the expansions however. The dungeons get much more complicated and you need to be aware of specific mechanics to successfully complete them (especially in a key role like healing). The sheer number of dungeons thrown at you while leveling complicates this even further. During Stormblood it got to the point I dreaded hitting a required dungeon while doing the MSQ. You cannot progress further until you do that dungeon. It began to feel like a job as I was reviewing guides before each dungeon. Doing the daily roulette for dungeons became a stress inducing event as a dungeon I’d only done once way back in Heavensward might pop up and I wouldn’t remember the specific mechanics. I’d die and then the group would die while I watched kicking myself for not remembering that one mechanic that killed me. So I stopped doing the daily roulette. The game just wasn’t fun at that point, so I quit.
I know I could switch to a pure dps job and my death wouldn’t be so impactful, but I love healing in mmo’s. I’m also aware seasoned players might think the dungeon mechanics are obvious, but as a relatively new player in FFXIV that just wasn’t the case. I’ve watched some videos on the Duty Support system which have interested me. If I can do dungeons solo with my NPC buddies, then I wouldn’t have to waste my group’s time when I die to mechanics in dungeons. Maybe I’ll try FFXIV yet again. Who knows, maybe I’ll even hit max level. 😂
Edit: I should mention how great the community in FFXIV is. I stated above I hated dying to mechanics during dungeons. Never once in an FFXIV dungeon was I yelled at for causing the group to die. Not once did the group dissolve after I died in a dungeon. Everyone would just run back and try again. They answered any questions I had as well. Quite the nice change from other mmo’s, especially WoW. If you die to boss mechanics in WoW, you are told how stupid you are before the group just abandons you. That probably explains my stress when it comes to healing dungeons as I’ve played the early expansions of WoW for almost 20 years. I’m conditioned to stress about mechanics and messing them up. Even knowing how nice the FFXIV community is, I still stress when it comes to healing dungeons I don’t remember well.
I actually first started around covid times but then the trial was only till level 30 so i bought the game already. However at the time i couldn’t upgrade my account to the full version because the site was being jank so i uninstalled in pure anger wrote a bad review then didn’t look at the game for another 3 years. Then halfway into 2023 i decided to pick it up again and this time did manage to upgrade my account and the sub i bought back in 2020 still worked cuz i never truly redeemed it. Now i’m still playing almost every day and have a few alts as well
As someone who played during cocid times no?
At 2020 the free trial went all the way to heavensward.
Are you getting it mixed up with WoW?
I’ve just reached level 55 and started realm awakening or whatever it’s called and I must say I am so glad someone else has pointed out how BORING THE BANQUET QUESTS ARE!! There is a lot of back and forth like you stated but something about the banquet quests are so soul draining it should be illegal! I really hope nothing ahead is like that lol now I’m just a level 55 running around doing main quests bc idk what else to do 🥺🤣
I started the game in Feb when it came to Xbox. That Titan questline nearly got me quitting honestly. I pushed through it, and it really does get better, especially once you make it through ARR.
The main thing that bugs me is that you can't do the MSQ with another player. Sure, you can kill things together or do the dungeons together, but I would have loved to play the story with a friend. I get the cutscenes would be just your own character, but having to disband the party for every one of the cutscenes. I have now completed DT and lost my sprout status (so 300 hours playtine).
Overall, I have enjoyed and am still enjoying the game. I have definitely story skipped on alts (I know you don't need alts, but I have always been an altoholic 😂)
Yes this is what makes the story good. What makes the story good is that it gives time for the characters to breathe. Its not about always fighting godlike entities, the Titan boss fight wouldnt be as memorable if you didnt make that entire feast before fighting it, this is how you know a boss is a big deal.
the feast story quest fetching is by far the lowest point in the MSQ.
i'm surprised i completed it, i almost stopped midway through😐
I have made two attempts to get into the game. The first time i gave up during the banquet quest. The second time i got bored during the 9 million quests between ARR and the next expansion.
I just wish there was an option or something for people who do not care for the story. I personally did not care for the story and skipped all of it, including dawntrail. I like doing the end game. I quit final fantasy many times because i was forced to finish all the dlc to do what i wanted. But, if i rememberp correctly. I think the dev said final fantasy xiv is supposed to be more of a story game. So, ig thats why they force you to play the story.
I have had multiple friends who were/are ff14 fiends and they wouldn't shut up until I tried 14 myself. Made it maybe to level 20-30 before I was just far too bored of msq and ultimately gave up on the game. I started as a black mage which I thought was boring so I swapped to warrior and had more fun drawing aggro in the first few dungeons but ultimately didn't enjoy any of what I experienced enough to see it to the end. I had friends who would drive me around to get new waypoints and power level me and stuff but it just didn't do it for me. I think the fact that its a more traditional mmo rpg with tons of skills to keep track of and how my character just stands in place casting stuff is just a type of mmo design id rather not go back to. I much prefer the more action oriented yet simple design of guild wars 2. Sometimes you can just tell if you're going to enjoy combat in a game from the first few encounters. Was an easy tell for that game as well as something like, warframe which I'd argue is close enough to an mmo as well. Different strokes and all that.
Honestly, I skipped the whole ARR story, is just too fucking boring. Then, while farming the tomestones for my lvl50 set before starting heavensward, I pulled a 2 hour video on youtube explaining the whole story of ARR, and caught up to it before starting HW. Best decision of my life.
I picked up FF14 on March this year after watching my bf play it. I'll admit, if it wasn't for him flying me around and encouraging me during ARR (particularly the patch quests after) I probably would've dropped the game. I'm so glad I didn't though. the pace picks up in heavensward and I got invested in the characters. stormblood got me invested in the world FF14 takes place in and after that (shadowbringers-dawntrail) I've just been having a blast. I ran msq as WHM but now I'm learning to enjoy the other jobs as well. advice for another thing to do when bored with msq is the crafting classes. it's actually a pretty fun mini game in itself when you start leveling it up.
I stared in 1.0 for a spell, didn’t get nowhere because game ran like crap and I had a potato (turned out the game was potato)
Then I got back into ARR in HW on PlayStation3. Stopped, wandered around other MMOs and other games never finding a home.
I came back in SHB and finally beat ARR and have been back since with occasional breaks.
It took me three tries for FFXIV to finally click. Endwalker came out and I was still in SHB MSQ. DT Will be my first expansion where I am current. I am excited.
As just one of the local emotional vampire gang, whenever I happen to see a sprout or see someone new streaming the MSQ, I always tell them the game is a marathon not a sprint. Take your time and enjoy the ride. I find the Grinding Gear pair have found a perfect way to game without burning themselves out and have enjoyed seeing their time with the MSQ.
Funny thing about that banquet quest was the point each member of their team was more or less testing you as they don't want to just send someone to their death. I only noticed that a few years after when I was thinking on the worse parts of ARR back in the dead. ((Real worst was the dead zone of MSQ that happened somewhere from 42 to 48. Had to Fate farm to get exp at a rate that felt worth it pre dungeons exp buff patch.))
Even when the questing isn't grand, it's building a world. Hell even in Dawntrail people more or less just treat us as another guy, as they have no reason to think any of the stories of the Warrior of Light are real, if they have even heard of them. And I love it personally. It's not for everyone for sure, but anyone who loves deep dives on lore will love FF14.
i agree with you, but i find it hard to continue the marathon when i have to start paying for the game when it should be the trial period.
guess it's a good example that offering discounts on purchasing the game and forcing players off that "trial experience" isn't the best thing for sprouts. it's been a big reason why i haven't logged into the game in over 2 months😔
@@moopliss The free trial for ffxiv is everything in ARR, HW, and Stormblood. There's hundreds of hours of free content you can do before paying a cent for the game.
I know they've already shortened ARR a few times already, but I think it still needs a lot of work. It's still an important story to go through to lay the base for the rest of the game, but most of it is still fetch quests. If they got rid of most of that and kept the bones, the player would still get what they need out of ARR without being bored out of their minds/dropping the game.
Just finished ARR not that long ago and i did enjoy it for the most part (except the tedious missions before fighting titan). I think the main reason i got through it was the dungeons and trials especially when they began to use mechanics. On the relic grind currently and that makes me want to quit more than the msq 😂. But i think the best thing about ff14 really is the community. Best commty ive ever been in.
Ive been playing for 10 years. Still tons of content I haven’t done. I would like to be a new player again. This game is a masterpiece in my book.
Final Fantasy XIV is the epitome of "It's about the journey, not the destination". Literally one of Endwalker's hardest hitting line is "Have your journey been good? Has it been worthwhile?". You are in no need to rush. You can play together with your friends already in Satasha, Palace of the Death, or the Gold Saucer. The game is big on the social aspect too, and all of those you can get early on. While you may not be able get into the later area's housing districts, you should be able to actually teleport there with some hijinks, you just need some help. AFKing in Limsa, going clubbing or to an art party, doing stupid shit in the FC house, are things one can do early on. Even Lalafell Parades are purposefully only kept to the starting areas. You are not supposed to rush.
While ARR can always use a coat of new paint, it also allows you to have an appreciation for ho far things have come.
I’m a 🌱 or at least I was until 3 hours ago. I have fun with the game, I think these are non issues created by people going into the game with a WoW mentality. It’s not the devs job to cater to the 1% of players trying to change everything fundamental about how the game works.
I tried the game once when it was rly hyped and yeah i had the same problem, I rly dont care about any story in any game like i have 15k hours in wow and no idea what is happening in the story at all so for me having to play whole story which i didnt even read or anything like that was just pain and theres no way i will ever come back to do this tbh
Oof heavy story based RPG and you skip the story, yikes.
My biggest issue is the overworld in general, im basically invincible and it doesnt make for a particularly engaging game.The deep dungeon palace of the dead is pretty cool and challenging. The dungeons get better around lvl 40, the extreme trials on minmum ilvl at 50 are pretty cool keeping old content relevant, so you dont have to wait until max level to raid. but the overworld remains very dull and im midway through heavensward atm.
The overworked normal mobs are balanced for casual players.
I'd reccomend joining an s rank hunt train or doing some achievement fates for a bigger overworld challenge
Yeah, I'm a FFXIV player since 2015 and I can say with confidence: it used to be way worse. At some point between expansions, they streamlined parts of the ARR MSQ , trimming some fat over the unsurmountable amount of slog quests, boosting the overall EXP for the quests that remained, in result. But... they also chose to not remove all of those quests, still keeping a bunch and they make you do some absurd amount of detours from the main plot, which is insane. They could easily cut more... WAY more and guess what, you won't be penalized for it. And the reason is simple: the actual MSQ + dungeons throughout ARR gives you SO MUCH EXP that makes you, most of the time, way above the minimum level requirement to attend these quests (which, by the way, was not the case back in the day).
You say it’s too much content yet for us that played 14 years ago and grew with the game, it wasn’t enough content
What do you think now, 3 months later? Just getting into stormblood: everyone was right, and I’m glad ARR set the stage