Looking at coming back I got questions

danwest58

First I left FFXIV when I had to grind out 50 some instances to get enough stones to buy my gear.  This drove me insane because the best way to get the stones was to do TP 50 times.  Which after about the 10th time I was bored as all hell.  I would have been fine doing 6 to 10 instances and RNG drops.  However doing 1 instance over and over because it was the fastest way to gear drove me off the deep end.

 

So what has changed since then.  Do I need to do the same 1 or 2 instances or does the game open up after hitting 50 where I can do 6 to 12 instances to gear up even if that means you get some gear from these 3 or 4 instances now another 3 to 4 open up?   Are the instances still nothing but speed runs requiring no coordination or did they go back to how sunken temple was week 1/2 of launch?  

Are there houses in the game now?  Are their player owned houses?  How does the Treasure hunting work?  

 

Thank you for posting your replies.  

ZenTaoYingYang

I am very lazy to  put a detailed reply, but yes this game open up after 50 and even before, you can acquire stones from hunts, most instances drop them and daily roulletes. well many options. also yes players housing for guilds and for individuals. treasure hunting you find small map , compare to ur full map and try to see where it is, mostly used to upgrade relic weapons but there are also gil rewards.

nbtscan

There will always be one most efficient way of getting the currency to purchase gear.  Right now, people do the expert roulette (which randomly picks one dungeon between three specific ones) for soldiery tomestones, and Syrcus Tower for sand of time/oil of time to upgrade the gear bought with soldiery.

There's a lot of other things you can do that'll reward the currency, such as some of the other roulettes, treasure maps and hunts, but the above ways will get you there faster.

To answer some of your other questions, the 4 man dungeons aren't designed to be overly difficult, so I don't feel like they compare to Qarn when it was originally launched.  The three new dungeons in this patch actually go by pretty quickly, although some of the encounters have some mechanics you'll have to work with.

Free Companies have had the ability to get a house since 2.2.  Personal housing just came in 2.4.  Depending on your server, there may or may not be plots still available.

Treasure Hunting becomes available with a quest in Wineport that takes you to Upper La Noscea.  After finishing the quest, any Disciple of Land that's 40 or higher can gather maps through lv40+ gathering nodes. (most of the maps are level 50 though)  Once you obtain the map, you decipher it, go to the location indicated on the map, dig for treasure, and then fight off any monsters that spawn from a result of opening it.  The higher level the map, the better potential rewards you can obtain.  Sometimes chests will yield an unhidden map which has even better items.

Hyanmen

Originally posted by danwest58

First I left FFXIV when I had to grind out 50 some instances to get enough stones to buy my gear.  This drove me insane because the best way to get the stones was to do TP 50 times.  Which after about the 10th time I was bored as all hell.  I would have been fine doing 6 to 10 instances and RNG drops.  However doing 1 instance over and over because it was the fastest way to gear drove me off the deep end.

So what has changed since then.  Do I need to do the same 1 or 2 instances or does the game open up after hitting 50 where I can do 6 to 12 instances to gear up even if that means you get some gear from these 3 or 4 instances now another 3 to 4 open up?   Are the instances still nothing but speed runs requiring no coordination or did they go back to how sunken temple was week 1/2 of launch? 

There are many Duty Roulettes nowadays that give you boosted rewards once a day. The "main" roulette picks one of the top three dungeons in the game since patch 2.4 - doing this roulette five times a week is enough to fill the main tomestones quota (every week you can except to get 1 piece of the high end gear).

The other roulettes have significantly more dungeons and trials to draw from, and they give the second-rate tomestones that you can use to gear up to ilvl100 or so. Overall the system favors the casual players, giving good rewards for not having to grind content 50 times a week. You'll still be expected to put in the effort to obtain all of the ilvl120 pieces however.

To sum it up, there will always be the three "main" instances of the current patch which you alternate to fill the tomestone quota. On top of that there are many, many other lvl50 dungeons that you alternate to fill the secondary tomestone quota. Outside of tomestone grind there is the Syrcus Tower (24 person casual raid) that also drops relevant gear and upgrades. In 2.5 we will get another tower that you can do for upgrades and gear. The Hunt system is also added for alternative path to some gear and upgrades. It's something you need to put effort into to succeed but the rewards are worth it. Of course there is also the Bahamut's Coil that will open up to casuals very soon, which you can use to gear up and obtain upgrades. Also some Extreme Primal battles to try for weapons and accessories...

You're not going to escape grind in the MMO unless you are satisfied with gearing up with the secondary tomestone + Syrcus Tower/Coil gear (which is totally fine as you can do all content with it aside from the hardest raids). The amount of alternative ways to go at it do make it more entertaining than in 2.0 though.

Oh you can also gear up pretty well through PvP (the gear looks totally awesome) but you kind of need a PvP community on your server to help you with the rather long queues.

danwest58

Originally posted by Hyanmen

Originally posted by danwest58

First I left FFXIV when I had to grind out 50 some instances to get enough stones to buy my gear.  This drove me insane because the best way to get the stones was to do TP 50 times.  Which after about the 10th time I was bored as all hell.  I would have been fine doing 6 to 10 instances and RNG drops.  However doing 1 instance over and over because it was the fastest way to gear drove me off the deep end.

So what has changed since then.  Do I need to do the same 1 or 2 instances or does the game open up after hitting 50 where I can do 6 to 12 instances to gear up even if that means you get some gear from these 3 or 4 instances now another 3 to 4 open up?   Are the instances still nothing but speed runs requiring no coordination or did they go back to how sunken temple was week 1/2 of launch? 

There are many Duty Roulettes nowadays that give you boosted rewards once a day. The "main" roulette picks one of the top three dungeons in the game since patch 2.4 - doing this roulette five times a week is enough to fill the main tomestones quota (every week you can except to get 1 piece of the high end gear).

The other roulettes have significantly more dungeons and trials to draw from, and they give the second-rate tomestones that you can use to gear up to ilvl100 or so. Overall the system favors the casual players, giving good rewards for not having to grind content 50 times a week. You'll still be expected to put in the effort to obtain all of the ilvl120 pieces however.

To sum it up, there will always be the three "main" instances of the current patch which you alternate to fill the tomestone quota. On top of that there are many, many other lvl50 dungeons that you alternate to fill the secondary tomestone quota. Outside of tomestone grind there is the Syrcus Tower (24 person casual raid) that also drops relevant gear and upgrades. In 2.5 we will get another tower that you can do for upgrades and gear. The Hunt system is also added for alternative path to some gear and upgrades. It's something you need to put effort into to succeed but the rewards are worth it. Of course there is also the Bahamut's Coil that will open up to casuals very soon, which you can use to gear up and obtain upgrades. Also some Extreme Primal battles to try for weapons and accessories...

You're not going to escape grind in the MMO unless you are satisfied with gearing up with the secondary tomestone + Syrcus Tower/Coil gear (which is totally fine as you can do all content with it aside from the hardest raids). The amount of alternative ways to go at it do make it more entertaining than in 2.0 though.

Oh you can also gear up pretty well through PvP (the gear looks totally awesome) but you kind of need a PvP community on your server to help you with the rather long queues.

Yea I dont mind the MMO grind.  Its just the first 2 months of FFXIV it was 2 instances and grind them 2 out until geared.  I can do a grind of a mix of 10 to 15 instances where I need to do them 50 to 100 times to get geared.  I just could not do the same 2 50 times or so.  That just drove me nuts.  I just need alternate things to do where its not one path each time.