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[Column] General: Prepping for Heavensward
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Victor outlines what you’ll need to prepare for the Heavensward expansion of Final Fantasy XIV.
Read more of Victor Barreiro Jr.'s Eorzea Reborn: Prepping for Heavensward.
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Comments
The problem with this game is it forces you to run dungeons to get through the main storyline, if you are dps you can be in the queue for a very long time. Not only that, but while in the queue you cannot have your battle pet out to level because it considers you in a group (dumbest "feature" ever in an MMO).
So basically if you are not already 50 roll a tank or forget it. Oh, and if you roll a tank you better know every dungeon prior to running it, this community is terrible toward tanks.
Good luck with your game, the only people who will ever likely touch it again are people ready for this expansion. Yes author, I disagree 3 months is enough for a casual returning player to get ready for this.
I recently dusted of FFXIV and rerolled a new character starting at level 1, its been a couple weeks of casual play and I am having fun and found a great guild to help get back into things and answer my newb questions
( Order of the Silver Dragons)
As a DPS on the Diablose server the wait time for Dungeons been less than 20 minutes. The lower level zones are quite but there are plenty of things going on and you often find other people doing FATEs.
The extra rewards for running lower level dungeons has helped a ton and makes finishing your storyline easy with a little patience. I don't know how things will turn out closer to 50 but so far the game has been a lot of fun and it feels like I should be able to get caught and current playing a few nights a week before June 19th when the expansion launches.
The game prioritizes new players in the queues now, so what you said is inaccurate. New player experience is better than ever.
Tanks get instant queues; if somebody is terrible to you, leave and join a new group immediately afterwards. Tanks have all the power in the game so you don't have to tolerate BS.
What i think of item level design?>>>0/10 worst design idea ever.
Ya let's copy Wow since Blizzard is such a crap developer when comes to systems.Blizzard is good at presenting easy ,casual no thinking,here follow this path,then you end up here grinding this then you end up here grinding that,all laid out super simple.
IN a MMORPG plaeyrs i would think want their OWN path,to play as they feel and where they want.
Ilevel is very simply put a super cheap way to advancement while having to do very little.Rehash the same fights ,just make harder versions,rehash the same weapons just upgrade them,all around crappy idea.
Since when should a weapon decide how good a player is?It makes zero sense,it shoudl be the player that determines how good a weapon is.You use skills ans resistances by creatures to determine when to use what weapon as well as choice in weapon skills and combos again to determine how to fight.You don't simply toss down some red carpets to avoid and spam away your ilevel weapon to call it skillful gaming.
It is such a stupid design that even in my FFXI,the weapon level determines what level my beast is that i spawn,doesn't even make sense.SO i can call the exact same beast but if my weapon is only 99 he is 99 or if my weapon level is 119 he is 119.Their design teams obviouslu a newer breed than old days are right off their rockers,i wish they would go work for Blizzard and quit ruining the great FF entity.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Have they made the first 6 hours of playtime a little more exciting or is it still endless fetch quests?
You don't have to do side quests, you know. Just do the main quests and hunting logue.
u know u can be a tank or a healer at anytime , just with the press of a button? the game toss u gear every now and then (class quest mostly), on the AH is pretty cheap and if u cant find anything on AH , there is always Company gear that u can buy with Seals.
U can rage or ...gasp , roll a tank yourself , and i dont know why ppl will rage at u for being first timer on a LOW lvl dungeon.... and as tank they con leave or shut up...if they insult u , kick them and keep going , dungeons are pretty straightforward on FFXIV , flash / overpower your way throw it :P (aoe agro skills!)
oh and the choco pet while nice isnt really needed ~~ , mine is still low lvl and never need it , when i was dps i could kill mobs fairly quickly , as tank healer i queued or did fates...
while in queue u can keep leveling with sidequests or fates...or level another class/craft/farm , or anything....
No offense "victor" but this was a very very poor prepper guide. Basically you just suggest finishing the main story line (WHICH I STRONGLY AGREE) & then moving on to your relic and gearing up... WTF????
Relic is going to be pretty much useless in the xpac as They have already stated there will be a entirely new quest line for a new relic.. Dont waste your GIL or time chasing this one kids. Also gearing up beyond the requirments for finishing the main questline is also foolish as gear will be replaced rather quickly.
I would suggest the following
1. Finish MAIN Quest line..This is a must before the xpac
2. Get you essential cross class skills , You'll have to google what exactly you need for which class you plan on making your main. For example i roll bard and currnetly working on getting lancer to lvl 30 ish so i can pick up the skill that restores 400 TP instantly...
3. LVL Your gathering/crafting professions to 50
4.Make some gil from those said proffesions, Play the market and find whats hot and whats not a little extra cash for the xpac will go a long way it always does in any xpac
5.DYE Your chocobo... Your not going to have time to screw with such a trivial thing with the xpac launches so do the stable quest for chocobos and google which food youll need to get the color u want
6. LVL YOUR CHOCOBO if you havent already... I went from 1-50 with no help from my chocobo , just started lvling him now and im sure having a companion to heal and dps will be handy for the tougher quests come heavensword..
I could keep going but i dont feel like typing anymore,,, YOUR WELCOME MMORPG
Aloha Mr Hand !
All I see on this site is 24/7 bitching about how everything is too easy now, and WoW ruined everything, and everything can be soloed now... then along comes a game that requires a very small amount of grouping to advance the main story line and what do we hear?
BOO-HOO-HOO IT'S SO HARD! HOW DARE THEY MAKE ME GROUP!
I would just like to point out that I have reached The Steps of Fate, which is pretty much the end of the Pre-Expansion story, before my free trial has ended. I don't think I really played more then a couple hours a day after hitting 50 also. I did play a fair bit while leveling, but nothing too crazy. You can easily hit 50 and be ready for the expansion before the expansion hits.
Assuming you don't have all the time in the world to play, and also don't want an extremely long post about everything you could do to keep yourself preoccupied till Heavensward, this is the result. I had to pick and choose the most important things to be prepped for, but obviously I only scratch the surface.
I'm not recommending people not do all the other good stuff in the game, but if you're looking for the bare minimum of direction to get into heavensward without worry, then this is what my write-up is for.
A writer and gamer from the Philippines. Loves his mom dearly.
Can also be found on http://www.gamesandgeekery.com
If that's the case then why mention the relic weapon? Unless you have hundreds of hours to sink into the process then you'll never get much past i90/i100.
His point is that you can't queue up for a dungeon with a Chocobo out, as it considers you to be in a party, and you can't join a party if you're already in one.
So, if you're in a long queue, but want to continue questing, you can't have your chocobo out at the same time. You have to be solo to queue up.
It's a valid point, and I always found that annoying as well.
They could just as well have it where the chocobo is automatically de-spawned upon entering a dungeon, and either have it respawn when you're done with the dungeon, or require you to respawn it yourself, as you'd have to anyway.
It's a quality of life thing, to be sure, and I couldn't imagine why Yoshi-P would be opposed to such a suggestion, as he seems to be big on making things "less stressful" for the player - and he has a pretty broad definition of what "stressful" is.
Weapons and equipment have decided how good somebody is for a long, long time in almost every RPG ever made. It's a very common and effective form of character advancement. By your logic, a wooden sword should be just as effective as a steel one against that dragon over there. Or maybe you think a Yugo could outrace a Corvette on driver skill alone?
Ruining FF? Uhh, have you played FF 8, 10, 10-2, 12, 13, etc.? FFXIV is the only game in a long time which actually feels like an FF game.
Oh, and guess what you did a lot in the SP FF games? When reaching a new area, you immediately started grinding gil so you could buy the latest and greatest GEAR.
Anyway, as for the guide, very helpful. I'm currently on the Moogle Mog fight stage of the story, hope to get that done some time this weekend as well as finish leveling my gathering classes. But first, I'm checking out the Golden Saucer! Should be fun. I'll also be working on my relic weapon, but if it's not finished by June no biggie.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
You know Victor, I have tried this game at least 4 times. It just comes off to me as the ultimate grinder, even worse than many of the Korean designs. I guess that is the state of MMO's these days, just introduce lots of grinding mechanisms to keep people occupied. Funny, I am still looking for a MMO that provides a sense of community, the closest that I came to that was in SWG or even UO. Eve is not bad, but again, it too has a lot of mind numbingly boring tasks.
Hi again.
I mentioned the relic weapon as a means of funnelling a person through new content (and thus Tomestones of Soldiery), as well as ensuring they have a stronger weapon once completed. They don't need to finish it, but an i80 weapon (or i90 with three Thavnairian Mists) is better than being stuck with an i50 or i55.
They could wait for a drop to happen in their runs, but this path lessens RNG, at least as far as the initial questlines for the relic weapon are concerned.
A writer and gamer from the Philippines. Loves his mom dearly.
Can also be found on http://www.gamesandgeekery.com
All Time Favorites: EQ1, WoW, EvE, GW1
Playing Now: WoW, ESO, GW2
Just because the combat is slower than you want/ are used to, doesn't mean it's bad. Everything about this game is very polished.
Also, there's so much more to do at endgame for new players than listed here. You'd have to know everything and be playing the game every day for several hours a day to maybe get done in 3 months. But you have to stop and think, you're finishing content that's been added in during the last 2 years. Finishing 2 years of content in 3 months may be a grind, but only because you're making it one.
This is no where near as grindy as old MMOs/Korea MMOs so stop saying that. It just shows you haven't played the game. The only real grind in this game is for the relic weapon and you should expect to grind for the best weapon in game. The grind is on the same level as WoW, and if 7 mil+ people find that OK, then people should find it OK in another MMO.
Combat is that bad, not that interesting nor very "tactical".