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Catching up
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
when playing this game, will i feel forced to catch up to the endgame part
or will just pkaying trough the stories feel fun enough?
or will just pkaying trough the stories feel fun enough?
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
You set your pace. FFXIV has quite a bit to do outside of the main quests and story. Don't forget to get sidetracked once in a while. Whether that's with PvP, Crafting, Gambling, or any of the other activities is up to you. If your main goal going into it though is end-game raiding I think it's going to be pretty miserable getting there. It has a very lengthy main campaign that you won't get through quickly.
When i sub to XIV i play it like every FF game out there. Focusing on the story and gameplay experience and i don't feel any pressure to catch up to anything. I think FF is better experienced that way IMO.
I don't know your playstyle, but at least this works very well for me with this particular game.
The patch content for the original (post remake, 2.1-2.35 ARR) release is pretty bad. They've expressed a want to completely remake it in the future and the ARR story skip option is popular because of that. Though after you get through that (it starts to pick up around patch 2.3.5), it should be relatively smooth sailing with a more interesting Final Fantasy like story throughout Heavensward and definitely into Stormblood (including their patch content, as they learned their lesson from ARR).
I'd second the comment about just letting yourself get side tracked every now and again; many of the game's systems are hidden through exploration and reading text. It used to be pretty bad as you had to do all the side quests to find them, but they've since made it so you can tell which side quests unlock new features but addition a "+" sign on side quests.
As a whole it's a super complex game compared to most (with nearly every feature having its own sort of meta, if you even find out about a feature), that also has "Old school" attunement quest and having to work you butt off to figure out the next new feature that's available to you at your level. Along with having every class available to you on a single character, pretty much every activity has a sense of accomplishment to it. The leveling experience / main storyline is a journey in of itself that will take months to play through like any good RPG. It isn't a case of getting from one to max in three hours, or one shotting mobs. It feels, to me, like a legitimate game and is probably one of the main reasons why WoW is beefing up their world mobs for the BFA leveling experience.
What WoW (as a fellow sub based game) has over FFXIV is that it does the hardest versions of raids better than FFXIV (though FFXIV has a better "LFR" system, as they make a unique raid just for LFR and their "normal" and "hard" versions of the premade raid is entirely different -- new location, story, music, bosses, etc.). Though FFXIV does pretty much everything else better, from pacing to feeling accomplished -- class design, rotations, dungeon design (Bosses -- especially in Heavensward and Stormblood Dungeons -- have mechanics that put most WoW Raid bosses to shame and are unforgiving; hard mode and normal mode are also different in design, layout, music and bosses and not just a lazy beef of enemy stats), crafting (gear, storyline, rotations and a lush material and gathering economy; also its own meta), side activities (most of which even full time players don't have everything unlocked or know about), etc. -- with a ton of features supporting each other and constantly being updated rather than abandoned with new expansions. With the new PvP updates, I'd say it even does a much better job at PvP than Legion currently does with its mess of a new system.
In essence, if one has to pick between one sub or the other, FFXIV is best for casual players that take their time and like a challenge and WoW is better for Hardcore raiders that view raiding as the only game WoW has to offer -- and have the ability to race there in three hours from fresh.
As for smooth sailing with experience, you are able to get to 1-45 pretty much without doing side quests now. Though 45-50 might require a few extra dungeons / Palace of the dead / PvP/ Fates / Squadron Dungeons (available starting level 46 after assembling and training a squadron), roulettes, etc. If you decide to start a new job on the character, you also get a 100% experience boost to everything in addition to rest bonuses and gear bonuses and food bonuses (and FC bonuses if they keep their buffs up).
I'd recommend doing the Hall of the Novice questline, as it will award you with a ring that gives +30% experience per kill and has stats that are better than most rings up to level 50 in game. As well as a full set of dungeon level 15 armor for new jobs you might take up.
the top end gear is weekly gated even though the content that drops equivalent ilvl of gear has been cleared and done to death for months.
also good luck trying to find a group that wants to catch someone up that has no previous logs and PUGs are frustrating
I have a ton of fun catching up on the story. The dungeon finder isn't horrible (or rather, the community isn't horrible inside the dungeon finder). I really do like the story, and while the original 2.0 story did drag a good bit, it really picks up in Heavensward and is excellent in Stormblood.
The new classes are pretty fun, and leveling is fairly quick (although repetitive) with PoTD, which doesn't replace the older methods of FATE grinding or leves anything, so it provides a nice alternative to be able to mix it up.
Once I get caught up on the story though, and I hit that gated gear grind portion. That's about where I drop back off. It's grinding one or two dungeons a handful of times a week to get currency capped, then a whole lot of .... I don't know, I suppose the "endgame" community is working on the higher difficulty encounters during that time, but me as a filthy casual doesn't have a lot to do other than work on other classes, crafting, gathering... and that's fun, but only in small doses to me.
At least until the next major patch brings in more story line content to do.
Even for someone that wants some decent casual endgame content there's not a great deal.
1 dungeon a day, 1 relevant 24man a week. 8man content is obsolete after 4-6weeks of release (the casual combat content). Honestly I struggle to see someone that likes to play in short bursts get anything out of the game besides the story patches as there's basically nothing to do besides level jobs to max to do nothing with them.
It's a shame really. XIV has some of the most entertaining classes and combat for me but it just lacks in every area.
It's so frustrating that it's so good yet bad at the same time. The developers are incompetent and are stopping XIV from being the big themepark mmorpg as Yoshi P himself says "unsub and subsribe when patches hit". Honestly it's disgusting to hear that.
Sorry for the rant but I guess It's disheartening to have something be so good yet do so many things wrong at the same time.
We were promised new relic and stormblood has soon been out 6months and nothing has come of it. Content has got less and less the longer the game has been going... 3 dungeons to 2 dungeons per cycle is just one minor change.
Buy the HW story skip potion from SE. $25. Problem Solved. You still have to do the Stormblood story stuff, though... Unfortunately.
But it will save you a ton of time to skip the old content.
And I agree. It's miserable to play through their story content. I think you have to be one of those people who has a ton of times on their hands and is really interested in their lore to enjoy it.
Leveling up a toon in FFXIV is like reading "War and Peace."
But I'm one of those people who enjoys reading War and Peace and other literature masterpieces.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey