hosannainexcelsis said:

It definitely does. If you're not adverse to listening ahead, it's worth hearing what Soken has been doing with the music in Heavensward and after, such as the themes for Great Gubal Library and Sohr Khai.



Mid-dungeon cutscenes go away after the final dungeons of 2.0, another thing which the developers improved on after base ARR.



If you like puzzle-ish bosses, I think the design for those really picks up once you get into level 50 dungeons and later in Heavensward. There's a lot of really neat mechanics that go on. It helps when you have a full complement of abilities to use in fights as well.



Yoshida has said that the battle system will be overhauled in Stormblood and redundant abilities may be eliminated. He wants the difficulty of executing jobs at level 70 to be about the same as it is at level 60, not get even more complex. So at least he's aware of the danger of bloat.

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It's bloated to hell and back as is at 60, though. You need a guide and a bunch of macros to do Summoner and Scholar even passably at cap. Most others don't fare too much better, shouldn't have to pick a class based off of your input method. Honestly this game benefits more from an MMO mouse than WoW does and it's PC exclusive.

They could outright start removing/rolling abilities together and it wouldn't do damage to the integrity of the combat. Classic MMO bloat, too many abilities that don't pack enough of a punch and too many that are borderline useless/negligible.

XIV is a great game but I hope that combat revamp is aggressive in certain areas. Toning down the glut of minor personal buffs and marginally different AoE abilities would be step one, for me.

aggienader said:

I've been considering getting into this, but what's throwing me off is that I want the full experience. When I look at physical buying options the only thing I see is Heavensward but it doesn't say if that gives me a Realm Reborn or not. Plus I want the first month free.

It looks like my only option is to buy RR thru the PSN. Is that the only thing I can do or does the physical version of Heavensward come with RR?

If I can't get a deal for the first 30 days free then I may not do it.

I would love some advice on this.

Click to expand...

The bundle you're looking for is just called "Final Fantasy XIV Online" now, without either ARR or HW subtitle.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZVQKROM/?tag=neogaf0e-20 - $15 on Amazon US, digital download

30 days is included with ARR, whether you buy the bundle or the standalone ARR. No extra free days with the expansion. You can also squeeze out a few extra free days by starting a 14-day trial before registering your product code on Mogstation (doing so wipes out all remaining trial days), though you'll be a bit limited in social options and a level cap of 20 for each class.

I main Dark Knight and I feel like it's at a good spot complexity-wise. Doesn't feel too bloated yet but I'm interested to see how it changes in Stormblood.

Bebpo said:

I'm kinda bummed I missed on out XI because it sounds like that has story & characters closer to what I'm looking for than XIV 2.0 (though Heavensward sounds better but that's far away still).

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You can always try XI nowadays, like 90% of the story is soloable nowadays and the game is very casual friendly once you get past 14 years old interface.

Leveling isn't tied to the story in FFXI, so they didn't have to bloat the story too much. (No more than the average JRPG story anyway)

Bebpo said:

And the other thought I have is that there is nowhere near enough music. The city themes are great and there's some good tunes. But I think this is part of what keeps the exploration and world environments from being really memorable and amazing is the lack of good unique music tracks for each area. Like in Xenoblade, when you first go to that swamp early on and it becomes night and glowing and the music changes it's just one of the most amazing exploration experiences ever. Or in Xenoblade X when you get your first flying mech. FFXIV's world just feels a lot less memorable to me, although I do like it and I love how many towns and camps there are.

Click to expand...

Gotta respectfully disagree. FFXIV has an insane amount of music. New tracks for each dungeon, trial-specific tracks, a lot of areas have at least 2 different tunes (I'm pretty sure La Noscea has 3) and cities have day and night tracks. As much as I love both Xenoblades, that's a different experience and having calm time during the night on maps is one of the most soothings things they could have done. It's like they perfectly know that you need silence after a lot of action, so they integrated it into the night, a time generally known for being silent

Edit: Oh wait you're at Titan. You're basically at where the game really starts.

royox said:

Oh, if you are leveling ARC to be a SMN I can lend you a hand. I play on PC with PS4 pad and this configuration is confy as hell and also very fast for all the micro-management you have to do.
Pro tip: DON'T.USE.PET.BARS. Bind your pet skills into your bars.


Main Bar (main DOT skills, ruin and Important stuff like Swifcast or Aetherflow)

L2+R2 (pet micromanagement and 2 pet buffs)

R2+L2 (Important stuff that you use in puntual moments like pet skills, ruin3, bahamut trance and Enkindle)

L2 (secondary bar or "I dunno where to put this". Skills rarelly used as Raise, Absorb, Limit Break and the summons)

Fast R2 doubletap

Fast L2 doubletap (very usefull for the Emergency Sprint)


If you play with pad you will notice that some skills are harder to use because it requires you to target a friendly target while you are DPSing an enemy, the Macro System is your friend. For example you can use Eye for an Eye (a buff for the tank) while you are attacking the boss with this macro:

/macroicon "Eye for an Eye"
/ac "Eye for an eye" <t> ---> 1 t ---> Do it to my target.
/ac "Eye for an eye" <tt> ---> 2t ----> Do it to the target of my target.
/wait 1
/p Eye for an Eye on <tt> -------> This part will make the macro to write that on the party chat so the healers know you just used it so they will wait for use their own buff.

Somebody died and you want to insta-resurrect him but pressing 2 skills is so hard? Swifcast+Resurrection macro

/macroicon "Resurrection"
/ac "Swiftcast"
/ac "Resurrection"
/wait 1
/p Resurrecting <t> <se.2> ------> se.2 ---> the macro will make a sound all the party will hear so everybody knows this person is coming back to life and other healers won't waste time on trying to resurrect him.


Also for Pet users (and playing with pad) this macro is A MUST. It swaps your pet skills automatically on your hotbars when you summon it.

For example when I summon Garuda:

/macroicon "Wind Blade" pet
/ac "Summon"
/chotbar pet "Contagion" 3 LAU
/chotbar pet "Shockwave" 3 LAR
/chotbar pet "Aerial Slash" 3 LAD
/hotbar pet "Contagion" 4 1
/hotbar pet "Shockwave" 4 2
/hotbar pet "Aerial Slash" 4 3

When I summon Ifrit

/macroicon "Summon III"
/ac "Summon III"
/chotbar pet "Radiant Shield" 3 LAU
/chotbar pet "Crimson Cyclone" 3 LAR
/chotbar pet "Flaming Crush" 3 LAD
/hotbar pet "Radiant Shield" 4 1
/hotbar pet "Crimson Cyclone" 4 2
/hotbar pet "Flaming Crush" 4 3

And Titan

/macroicon "Earthen Ward" pet
/ac "Summon II"
/chotbar pet "Earthen Ward" 3 LAU
/chotbar pet "Landslide" 3 LAR
/chotbar pet "Mountain buster" 3 LAD
/hotbar pet "Earthen Ward" 4 1
/hotbar pet "Landslide" 4 2
/hotbar pet "Mountain buster" 4 3

I copyed it from reddit (a long lost thread) and LAU, LAR and LAD meant Left for L; U,R and D were "Up, down, Right" on the D-pad and don't remember what the A was. The num code was for the same but to add those skills on the little bars at the Right (I use them to keep control of the CD's time and not having to be pressing L2+R2 every 5 seconds to check out when are they ready).

Hope I helped you a bit with your Arcanist

Click to expand...

Shout outs to this. I've gotten like 5 classes to 50 but never touched healing because I thought it would be too hard to do adequately on ps4. Will try this out sometime soon.

royox said:

Oh, if you are leveling ARC to be a SMN I can lend you a hand. I play on PC with PS4 pad and this configuration is confy as hell and also very fast for all the micro-management you have to do.
Pro tip: DON'T.USE.PET.BARS. Bind your pet skills into your bars.


Main Bar (main DOT skills, ruin and Important stuff like Swifcast or Aetherflow)

L2+R2 (pet micromanagement and 2 pet buffs)

R2+L2 (Important stuff that you use in puntual moments like pet skills, ruin3, bahamut trance and Enkindle)

L2 (secondary bar or "I dunno where to put this". Skills rarelly used as Raise, Absorb, Limit Break and the summons)

Fast R2 doubletap

Fast L2 doubletap (very usefull for the Emergency Sprint)


If you play with pad you will notice that some skills are harder to use because it requires you to target a friendly target while you are DPSing an enemy, the Macro System is your friend. For example you can use Eye for an Eye (a buff for the tank) while you are attacking the boss with this macro:

/macroicon "Eye for an Eye"
/ac "Eye for an eye" <t> ---> 1 t ---> Do it to my target.
/ac "Eye for an eye" <tt> ---> 2t ----> Do it to the target of my target.
/wait 1
/p Eye for an Eye on <tt> -------> This part will make the macro to write that on the party chat so the healers know you just used it so they will wait for use their own buff.

Somebody died and you want to insta-resurrect him but pressing 2 skills is so hard? Swifcast+Resurrection macro

/macroicon "Resurrection"
/ac "Swiftcast"
/ac "Resurrection"
/wait 1
/p Resurrecting <t> <se.2> ------> se.2 ---> the macro will make a sound all the party will hear so everybody knows this person is coming back to life and other healers won't waste time on trying to resurrect him.


Also for Pet users (and playing with pad) this macro is A MUST. It swaps your pet skills automatically on your hotbars when you summon it.

For example when I summon Garuda:

/macroicon "Wind Blade" pet
/ac "Summon"
/chotbar pet "Contagion" 3 LAU
/chotbar pet "Shockwave" 3 LAR
/chotbar pet "Aerial Slash" 3 LAD
/hotbar pet "Contagion" 4 1
/hotbar pet "Shockwave" 4 2
/hotbar pet "Aerial Slash" 4 3

When I summon Ifrit

/macroicon "Summon III"
/ac "Summon III"
/chotbar pet "Radiant Shield" 3 LAU
/chotbar pet "Crimson Cyclone" 3 LAR
/chotbar pet "Flaming Crush" 3 LAD
/hotbar pet "Radiant Shield" 4 1
/hotbar pet "Crimson Cyclone" 4 2
/hotbar pet "Flaming Crush" 4 3

And Titan

/macroicon "Earthen Ward" pet
/ac "Summon II"
/chotbar pet "Earthen Ward" 3 LAU
/chotbar pet "Landslide" 3 LAR
/chotbar pet "Mountain buster" 3 LAD
/hotbar pet "Earthen Ward" 4 1
/hotbar pet "Landslide" 4 2
/hotbar pet "Mountain buster" 4 3

I copyed it from reddit (a long lost thread) and LAU, LAR and LAD meant Left for L; U,R and D were "Up, down, Right" on the D-pad and don't remember what the A was. The num code was for the same but to add those skills on the little bars at the Right (I use them to keep control of the CD's time and not having to be pressing L2+R2 every 5 seconds to check out when are they ready).

Hope I helped you a bit with your Arcanist

Click to expand...

Awesome! Eventually, way way in the future, I'd love to play SMN but right now my main aim is Scholar. But this is still super helpful and in-depth! Thanks!

I’ve now made it up to level 16 so far and I’m starting to get a better feel for the game overall, and learning the combat a little more. I like the training tutorials by the Smith and I think the game has done a pretty good job on feeding me new stuff to learn without it being overwhelming.

But the story so far has been pretty nonexistent. I’ve come across some story bits with my first instance with 2 new characters from the game (don’t even remember their names) and then bump into them again later when I fight some monster controlled by a black mage. But that is it. Everything else has been small quests and I’ve also been introduced to Fates, Guild and Lefemere quests. Hoping the story improves some for the first 50 levels because at first it was OK, but now it is kinda tedious.

I’m pretty experienced when it comes to Final Fantasy (beat I, IV,VI – X, XII and XIII), but my only exposure to an MMO was World of Warcraft basic when I quit after getting to level 32. The grind was too much. I like that XIV’s quests are much more streamlined than early WoW and the tasks are located closely together so that is good but I’m hoping the grind is not so bad.

Things so far that I like:

• Easy to navigate and complete quests
• I like being able to join in on Fates and quests with other people without having to join a guild and coordinate when you want to play together, etc.
• Travel time is not too bad
• Weapon management is pretty easy

Things I don’t care for:

• Combat is still not completely intuitive yet, switching between targets can be difficult especially when the game seems like it is trying to switch off of someone you have already targeted.
• VERY little audible dialogue, something I am not use to with a FF game. I started to read through all the quests but now I find myself just hitting X to add it to my journal so I can then just go and either kill monsters or collect items (or a combination of both!)…which leads me to my next point.
• Very little variety so far…if I have a 100 hours of this until the good stuff comes I don’t know if it is worth it. It’s not bad at all but at only level 16 I fear it is going to get a lot worse as I get to level 50.

Some questions I’m hoping people might be able to help with:

• Any way to automatically make the camera to point in the way the character is facing? (quickest way I know of is to press R3 twice which changes to first person mode and then back to 3rd person with the camera reset)
• Any way to tell how many hours I’ve put into the game so far?
• When I view a map through the quest screen and move the map, it takes me off of the quest box and I don’t know of an easy way to get back to that screen without moving the PS mouse back to the quest box. The whole screen is taken up with the quest/map boxes. Hope that makes sense. Isn’t there a button you can just press to cancel my character’s actions to make the quest screen active again? It’s frustrating if something comes up and I’m trying to find a way to close the boxes quickly.

Shahed said:

For controller users. It's perfectly viable. I have a keyboard for chat, but otherwise it's all controller. I main a tank, but also play DPS and heal even the harder Ex Primals and endgame Raids. There's a lot of little things in settings that can help you.

The main way to target different enemies is if when holding either L2 or R2, you then press L1 or R1 to tab to another enemy. You can also use L1 and then up and down on the Dpad to cycle through the enemy list. Now some people may have an issue where it can target NPC's or other non enemies, but you can set it so when your weapon is drawn, the targeting won't choose an NPC or another player. Makes it a lot easier since it'll always tab to another enemy. And when you do want to target something other than an enemy, press up and down on dpad to cycle through party members, and for objects just press circle to deselect and use left/right on dpad.

Click to expand...

Thank you for posting this, it is very helpful. I don’t know why the game didn’t mention that you can switch targets with the L1 and R1 buttons while holding either the L2 or R2 action buttons (maybe they did and I just missed it). Since R2 is my primary action button I use for combat, I use the R1 button to switch between enemy targets. I find it tricky to use the R1 button to switch since I use my index finger for R2. I can try to start using my middle for R2 but it just seems awkward…so for now I just use L1 to keep cycling through the enemies hoping I don’t overshoot the one I want in the stressful action sequences.

So time to update this. Finished 2.0 MSQ last night. Was around 130 hours over a month (actually finished it one day before my trial period ended), but I took my time and did side stuff along the way. Got my Ninja to lvl.50. Did all the "+" symbol optional content up through that point, and a decent chunk of the "!" small quests. Ran both dailies each day from lvl.15, did some fishing, some crafting, some gathering, a bunch of triple triad, got all my hunting logs for Rogue and my GC and kept an Alt job of Paladin although I dropped it at about lvl.40 to focus all xp on my main Ninja since the XP needed was getting much higher than the MSQ paid out in the 40s.

Overall the game did grow on me. Story-wise everyone was right that it does get better after Titan. Coerthas was good and the first story section with some actual NPC characters and development. Now it was still plagued by the fact that each time you met a new NPC they'd give you 4-5 filler quests between every legit quest that advances the story, so the pace was slow and padded, but it was interesting and got better and better through Mor Dhona where it got real good up through the start of the final dungeons. As hyped up as the game got me going into the final dungeons with great music for Garuda and imperial base theme, the actual dungeons were like 40 minute queue wait -> 8 person chaos -> watching cutscenes while everyone beats the stage without me -> cutscene/cutscene/cutscene and the story basically was like "invade enemy base & boss rush!" and that was about it so it was ok but nothing too special. In the final stage my gameplay stopped at the Magitek key part and after that it was nothing but cutscenes and then dungeon was over. I missed every boss fight. I didn't have this problem in the 2nd to last stage, just the last one. I'd like to replay that final stage skipping cutscenes and doing the battles but as a DPS my queues on the last 2 stages + Cape Westwind were crazy long, like 30-45 mins each whereas the entire game prior to that all my queues were 15 mins or less. Then again those were 8 player ones, so maybe 8 people queues take 2-3x as long to fill than 4 player?

I kinda felt in the final dungeon that not having played 1.0 I missed out on some of the background development for some of these characters. Because like I totally thought that characters like Nero in his red armor were being saved for a future arc since he shows up a couple of times early on in cutscenes, then disappears and has zero development for the rest of the story and then suddenly there's like dramatic backstory to him in the 3 paragraphs before you fight. Was he in 1.0 and developed along with Cid there or something? Because otherwise that was kinda sudden. The Cape Westwind guy had like zero development but that was ok for what he represented. The female gunner & Gaius got enough development for their characters I thought. Nero was the oddball underdeveloped one.

But it was solid. Felt like a Trails in the Sky/Kiseki franchise "FC" type game. Slow, bog standard but fine good guys v bad guys straightforward story that sets up the world and cast to allow for much more interesting things to happen in the future.

I like the Scions a little more now. I still feel they're mostly underdeveloped at this point. I think Bigs & Wedge got more development in the 2.0 cast than any of the Scions lol.

The Ninja job quest through 50 was not that good -_- Rogue class questline was much better. Oboro is zzzzzzzzzzzzz compared to Jack. Ninja as a class though is pretty fun, especially at lvl.50 the complexity is perfect and once I got the double tap L2/R2 extensions on it's pretty playable on a controller.

Also, I feel like I've already been able to notice how the writing improves post 2.0. I unlocked the Beast Tribe quests at lvl.43 or something and the writing in there is like 100x more FF and better than the 2.0 MSQ. I love all the tribe quests and their writing. Like the goofy loser squad Kobolds is classic FF and super enjoyable. I wish 2.0's story had stuff like these beast tribes along the way where you'd go and meet all the tribes and they'd be unique and interesting. The Sylph bit was not done that great in the 2.0 story imo, although the Sylph Quest writing in the beast tribe quest line seems much improved. I like how the Sylphs are dickish. Writing just needs more personality and I feel like the beast tribe stuff and the rogue quest line has that which are all post-2.0.

The world is well done. I like how many unique interesting locations they've packed into each zone so it's not just a big open area with nothing to do. The fates do a good job of giving a reason to fight the regular enemies because otherwise there's no reason not to just chocobo ride past all enemies and never fight anything outside dungeons/quests.

The gameplay is great and I joined an FC that's been really friendly and added a lot, so that's cool. I'm starting to get into the social aspect.

But since this thread was really just about the story, I'm not entirely sold on it yet. Like prior to Titan I was feeling like the MSQ was the worst storyline in an FF 1-13 (outside 11 which I haven't played). Now I'd probably put it about on par with the not all that memorable story games like FF1/2/3/5, but below all the story focused FFs. It's definitely very playable and along with the good gameplay is enjoyable. Hopefully it just gets better from here on out which is what it sounds like. Prior to finishing the game I was just going to sub for 1 additional month to get 2.0 MSQ done or maybe through 2.5 done, but last night after finishing the 2.0 MSQ and watching the credits I subbed for 6 months and figure I'll probably play through Stormblood.

I still think I'll never play another MMO after this, it's just too time intensive and I'd rather play several great single player rpgs in the time it takes, but it's cool and it's getting more FF every quest/dungeon so I'm on board. I really like how interesting the mechanics are getting for dungeons/bosses now. Makes each one fun.

Bebpo said:

I kinda felt in the final dungeon that not having played 1.0 I missed out on some of the background development for some of these characters. Because like I totally thought that characters like Nero in his red armor were being saved for a future arc since he shows up a couple of times early on in cutscenes, then disappears and has zero development for the rest of the story and then suddenly there's like dramatic backstory to him in the 3 paragraphs before you fight. Was he in 1.0 and developed along with Cid there or something? Because otherwise that was kinda sudden. The Cape Westwind guy had like zero development but that was ok for what he represented. The female gunner & Gaius got enough development for their characters I thought. Nero was the oddball underdeveloped one..

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None of Gaius's armored general appears in 1.0, actually. Nero's development actually comes later in a (substantial) sidequest. You could perhaps view his appearance in that last dungeon as just an introduction of a guy who knew Cid way back when.

Nice to see you're warming up to the story. I went through a very similar impression trajectory as yours and I'm pretty confident to say that if 2.0's finale got you interested, 2.5 and "Heavensward" would satisfy.

The story has definitely improved by the point you're at, but it continues improving even more with the 2.1-2.55 patches in between where you are and the 3.0 content. And then in 3.0 it's even better for the most part, with a few minor quibbles. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself more, so hopefully you'll get to experience it.

Yeah, it's a bit of a shame the generals were under developed. Outside of Gaius none of them were in 1.0 and in 1.0 Gaius was a nicer guy. Like, he was still a bad guy but more honourable and also was against the idea of pulling a giant meteor down. Nero does get more development in later stuff which is good but the others I think are just straight up dead. At least their designs and fights were cool, though sadly it seemed you missed out on some of them.

And yeah, the game gets more and more FFish as you go. In hindsight 2.0 definitely feels less of "we're telling a grand FF story" and more "were telling a basic NES level FF story but also setting up this world". There is still "filler" in the 2.x quests and Heavensward but the stories told there are much better than the stuff in 2.0. For some of the 2.x stuff you'll be doing errands and delivering clothes or flowers and stuff and while the playable content is lame, boring, uninteresting,MMO fetch questy or whatever, I feel that the story and reasoning behind them does add to the overall story line. Even if there are points where it feels like the NPCs should have gotten a courier to do the work instead of the realm's saviour I feel it adds to your character, showing that you are still a man/woman of the people, still helping out and doing good at every level despite you being one of the strongest people alive.

The fights in the last two dungeons are pretty cool and it is a shame that people ran through them and did them too fast but SE did learn from that and put the cutscenes before and after the dungeons now with at worst a boss introduction. It does take a long time to get people for the main scenario final dungeons because yeah, 8 people and it's old content. If you're on Ultros I'm sure some people from the GAF FC would be happy to run it through with you.

I finished the ARR story last night and really enjoyed it lol.

I love the Scions, especially Yda, Y'Shtola and Minfillia and the story ended up being far far better than I expected.

Maybe it's because I went in with no expectations about how much I'd like the story? (And indeed I always dismissed FFF14 as not being a "true" final fantasy")

Reached level 19 yesterday as a conjurer after finally committing and paying for the game subscription. I skip most cutscenes but the gameplay is alright.

I mostly like how I can just hop in, do some quests and stop playing again. Don't really have to commit much time to the game, at least not at this point.

I've now made it up to level 31 with a Lancer along with the Marauder at level 15. Looking forward to doing the quest where I can become a Dragoon. Love that class back from FFIV when Kain jumped off of the screen, haha, hoping it will be pretty cool in FFXIV as Lancer and Marauder are starting to get a bit boring.

The story is still bleh, it has gotten a bit better with the members of Scion but playing the game right now is starting to be a chore as I'm just trying to get to level 50, as I hear that it gets better from there.

Have some more questions I'm hoping that some of you may be able to help with:

• Any way to tell how many hours I’ve put into the game so far?
• Is there any point in crafting Materia if I don't care for the way my outfits look? I was hoping my weapons could get some easy bonus attributes by equipping Materia in the slots ala FFVII but it seems like a lot of work for little reward
• Same thing with learning the Armorer crafting skill, I think I am at level 10 now. But making the armor is soo slow, even with the auto crafting enabled to speed up the process. If this is mainly for getting better looking armor I don't really care, but if it adds a lot of cool attributes maybe it is worth it? I'm just finding it to be too much of a time sink.
• I'm about to run out of inventory, I guess I'm wondering if I need to keep what I have to craft it into better material or if I should just use it (like the food that gives you a small limited strength increase)? Same goes with the old weapons and armor. I'm not looking to have a great looking character but do like being able to get better weapons for slots if it is not too much effort.

Thanks!

fatty said:

• Any way to tell how many hours I’ve put into the game so far?
• Is there any point in crafting Materia if I don't care for the way my outfits look? I was hoping my weapons could get some easy bonus attributes by equipping Materia in the slots ala FFVII but it seems like a lot of work for little reward
• Same thing with learning the Armorer crafting skill, I think I am at level 10 now. But making the armor is soo slow, even with the auto crafting enabled to speed up the process. If this is mainly for getting better looking armor I don't really care, but if it adds a lot of cool attributes maybe it is worth it? I'm just finding it to be too much of a time sink.
• I'm about to run out of inventory, I guess I'm wondering if I need to keep what I have to craft it into better material or if I should just use it (like the food that gives you a small limited strength increase)? Same goes with the old weapons and armor. I'm not looking to have a great looking character but do like being able to get better weapons for slots if it is not too much effort.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

1. Write /playtime and it will tell you

2.Materia crafting is only usefull for high end content. Don't bother with it.

3.Crafting and gathering jobs are treated like any other fighting job so you better focus on leveling up your Lancer/Dragoon and forget about crafting till you are high level. Crafting is only usefull for earning money but it also will cost you a lot to level up so let it for the end.

4. You should enable an option that stores your wearable items on the armory so they don't use your normal inventory slots. Also you have to do your retainer quest, a retainer is an NPC that will store your items and money and you can have 2 of them!

Alex said:

You need a guide and a bunch of macros to do Scholar even passably at cap.

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A bit late here but...

Been playing SCH since launch and lol no at the macro thing, all you need are a few simple target of target things every healer uses. The rest of it comes down to just learning when to dps and when to heal/mitigate damage. From the outside in it might seem complex but if you level as SCH the toolset becomes very obvious in it's use

royox said:

1. Write /playtime and it will tell you

2.Materia crafting is only usefull for high end content. Don't bother with it.

3.Crafting and gathering jobs are treated like any other fighting job so you better focus on leveling up your Lancer/Dragoon and forget about crafting till you are high level. Crafting is only usefull for earning money but it also will cost you a lot to level up so let it for the end.

4. You should enable an option that stores your wearable items on the armory so they don't use your normal inventory slots. Also you have to do your retainer quest, a retainer is an NPC that will store your items and money and you can have 2 of them!

Click to expand...

Thank you, this was very helpful.

Ok, time to bump this. 272 hours (so I guess about 200 hours later) and just finished the final 2.x quest before HW and...

Wooooow!

The end of 2.5 was amazing. I'm glad I've been lucky enough to not see any spoilers for the MSQ. I could see where they were going from the earlier setup but still that was masterfully done. Felt like a Kiseki/Trails quality ending. Really satisfying finale to ARR and good Ep1 ending with enough setup throughout the long MSQ to make the coming episodes seem interesting. The end stuff in 2.5 felt like a great single player rpg, with lengthy cutscenes that have impact and development, not just an MMO. If the story telling and presentation can maintain that level from here on out then damn, this is gonna be good and I'm fully on-board.

I mean I've been fully on-board from the gameplay-perspective since hitting lvl.50, but this was the story part that's sold me and got me interested in the main story plotline. Lots of good side storylines too. Loved the Crystal Tower storyline, it was extremely FF and great. Coil was ok, I didn't feel it had much impact not having played 1.0 and only having seen summaries of the plot of 1.0. Didn't really have any attachment to any of the characters involved. Hildebrand started off whatever and I didn't get why people liked it, but it's been getting better each caper. Lots of good stuff. I'm satisfied.

Really curious what you think of Heavensward now.

Time to bump this for 3.x finish! Now up to 440 hours.

So I finished 3.0 HW last week on Friday and then raced through 3.X to be there for Stormblood and just finished 3.55 two nights ago. Unlike 2.x/ARR where I did basically 99% completion (outside all job quests), Coil, CT, Extreme bosses, all hard dungeons, in 3.x I've done basically none of that because I was just rushing MSQ to get caught up. The only optional content I did was Void Ark/Weeping/Dun Scaith with Duckroll/Aeana/other gaffers (oh yeah, I world transferred to Ultros for HW) and on Wednesday night I logged in and the gaf FC was doing Extreme so I joined that and did that which was a lot of fun.

I plan to do the rest of the 3.x content fully, just while I'm playing SB MSQ at a slower pace. Figure if I did all the 3.x optional content I'd probably be around ~500 hours.

Anyhow, enough about stats, what did I think of HW? Did HW fix all my issues?

Heavensward was great

Great characters straight from the start with House Fortemp, Ishgard while initially a little disappointing in size compared to the starting 3 cities, over time became my favorite place to be and yeah I wish there was an GC there and housing because I'd never go back to Limsa if I didn't have to do my daily GC turn-ins and adventurer squad. It's just a cold, beautiful place and the music is amazing. Night in the Brume (aka night music for Foundation) is like the most soothing sad piece of city music I've ever heard. I could just sit and chill to that. I loved the atmosphere of Ishgard. Though it was fairly empty in terms of player characters since I'm late to HW and not many people hang out there.

Then going on to West Coerthas I was a little disappointed again initially because it's so similar to Coerthas which I just came from, and flying is very slowly unlocked and there's no dungeons/trials and it starts kinda slow, but once you get past that and it's sea of clouds and tail feather and flying and DRAGONS and MOOGLES and omg, it just doesn't let up and it's a great adventure through this amazing world. Like 2.x I love love love all the beast tribes. They are perfect Final Fantasy and everything I want out of the game. Raavana was awesome (although on replays he's too much of a grind HP/DEF-wise, otherwise cool), Bismark was AWESOME.

Story was surprisingly meaty. Since it was my first MMO, I kinda figured expansion like single player rpg expansions and some short 30 hour smaller thing. When the final dungeon appeared I thought that was the end but then two full maps still remained Hinterlands & final area map + Idyllshire. Felt like a full length full content rpg. Great.

Story-wise I thought the ending felt kinda rushed (3.0) and the final boss was dumb story-wise. But then 3.x went on and it's like oh, this isn't just some true ending arc; no, they just didn't have time or something to finish the game and 3.1-3.3 is the last 20% of the story. The storyline from 3.0-3.3 is good stuff and definitely the most enjoyable coherent and doesn't fall apart FF story since like...FF10? (Didn't play 11). The final 3.3 stuff is awesome and exactly what I wanted out of the 3.0 finale. Like the 3.0 final boss was such a let down fight but the 3.3 final boss was GREAT and that is the kind of rpg final boss I want in my rpgs.

3.4-3.55 were ok. 3.4 felt like a kinda filler side-story and 3.55 was kinda eh. I don't really care about plus I don't really care about Ala Mhigan or whatever. I have the lowest of low expectations going into SB from a story perspective, I just don't expect it to compare to the awesome knights vs. dragons in the snow premise and world of HW, but hey low expectations can be good because I should be easily pleased if it's better than mediocre/zzz.

I went through HW with my NIN, so I didn't get a chance to see the Dark Knight story people rave about yet. Eventually I'd like to do all jobs for their storylines and gameplay variety. I have most of the battle jobs up to about lvl.30 outside one (archer) that I haven't started and crafting/gathers to lvl.50ish. Anyhow, the NIN lvl.50-60 story sucked! Like it started off fine enough with new colorful characters and funny, but the second half was total trash with trash antagonist and nothing quests. NIN 30-50 while being generic was so much better. I really hope NIN 60-70 is much better written and more effort put in than 50-60. The new 50-60 NIN skills were pretty cool in the 2nd half though with armor break, the double attack thing, and dream within a dream.

One of the things I missed by being late to the party on HW is that there's all these cool fates with their own stories and fate chain quests and never really got to see many of those because no one does fates anymore. Part of the problem is that once you're max level fates give jack & shit for rewards. I couldn't believe they were still giving GC seals and not even centurio seals which hunts give (btw, doing hunts with people in HW is fun!). You'd think if Fates either gave some lore or they setup a new currency (FATE CURRENCY) that you could trade at a fate counter for something useful it'd keep fates populated so I'm really surprised they never did that.

OH, the sightseeing log was 1,00000000000000000000x better in HW with flying and non-stupid requirements for weather/time of day and having a visible icon. Finding the spots and then getting more lore info on the world is great and helps flesh out the map. Unfortunately the final map has NO SIGHTSEEING LOG (which makes sense for story reasons, although you could've like picked up an ancient one there or something), which brings me to my only other real complaint about FF14 outside of the empty Fates: in HW (and assuming onwards) these maps are huge and often well designed with neat looking areas filling out the map. But...there's nothing to do in a lot of it. Like the final area of HW is huge and the story barely goes around it and there's not even a sightseeing log. It just seems like a waste to make all this space and not populate it with things to do. Eventually I'd like them to come up with some new gameplay systems or collectibles to fill out the map with stuff to do everywhere like how good sandbox games do. It's just a waste when they make cool looking parts of a map and it's underused.

Otherwise, dungeons were a mix of good/ok. Some good dungeon bosses. Trials are fun. Between Warring Triad and extreme versions of every trial (thank you; still kinda Chyrsalis never get an extreme version; every fight should have a hardcore complex optional version because those are the most fun), there's a good number of trials and a solid number of dungeons.

Void Ark raid was kinda of ok, but no Crystal Tower. The quest (pirates!) was fun, but the first part is zzz, and weeping city is better and dun scaith is ok. DS final bosses felt like a really boring grind tbh vs like AWESOME CLOUD OF DARKNESS pulling tornados. And nothing compares to the epicness of the 2nd stage of the Crystal Tower raid going up the beautiful tower with the best music ever, fighting Amon and then friggen XANDU EMPEROR. CT's 3 raids overall felt like a super epic awesome final fantasy short story/fanservice homage. Void Ark 3 raids felt like a fun goofy halloween sidequest with a weird mishmash of FF7/8/9 stuff.

Looking forward to doing Alexander and the Warring Triad (only unlocked the first one, haven't started).

Finally, the music in Heavensward is super good. Already mentioned Night in the Brume, but even stuff like the funky piano Gubal Library BGM rocks, and Idyllshire is so good and the Bismark theme and final boss music, etc... excellent, excellent soundtrack. Can't wait to hear what they churn out for SB.

So yeah, I had a great time over about 80 hours (started 3.0 around 360 hours in) in the last month. Story-wise it's not like THE BEST THING EVER or anything imo and as a standalone rpg I'd probably say the story/characters/adventure was like an 8.5/10 (I have a few plot issues with Ishgard's plot and the 2.55x Ul'dah followup is totally halfassed), but it was an extremely solid well-told coherent story and like I said I can't think of an FF that's had that in a decade+ so it was very enjoyable. But combining the story with the awesome locals, great fights and MOOGLES (although boy did I want to kill them in the first quest chain to unlock the beast tribe), it was a great A quality rpg, and I'm 100% on board with FF14 now, but like I said I'm not expecting much from SB, so hopefully it will surprise me.