FF14: A Realm Reborn

[tmp]

This is probably the first time an MMO has been successfully unfucked.  If there was no sub fee, I'd still be playing.

[zumu]

The upcoming changes to warrior(post by Yoshida himself) have brought me back to the game. Forum posts like this, coupled with the credentials of 'unfucking' an entire game give me hope. This Yoshida guy may be the chosen one.

 I'm also pretty excited to play some horribly balanced PvP come mid-Dec. If anything this game is a nice mindless counter-balance to nemesis league PoE.

[Falconeer]

The game is 12 euros these days in Europe for the digital download. Soooo tempted...

[Signe]

The game is 12 euros these days in Europe for the digital download. Soooo tempted...

You can be almost as adorable in this game as you are in real life. 

[Falconeer]

Oh I already made my character in beta, and as you know very well she totally looks like me in real life.

[Senses]

The upcoming changes to warrior(post by Yoshida himself) have brought me back to the game. Forum posts like this, coupled with the credentials of 'unfucking' an entire game give me hope. This Yoshida guy may be the chosen one.

I think this might be one of the rare occasions where the guy with the vision has all the power.

[Fordel]

Semi-serious question, how would those ears actually work? Isn't there a whole bunch of inner workings to ears that need space that is occupied by brain there?

[Reg]

Do not question the Cat Girl!

[Trippy]

Semi-serious question, how would those ears actually work? Isn't there a whole bunch of inner workings to ears that need space that is occupied by brain there?

You could ask the same thing about real cats.

[Kitsune]

The area on our skulls that are taken up by ear stuff would not be so for catgirls; you'll notice on humans that the brain is more or less L-shaped, coming up from the spinal column and curving over our ears.  Their brains would likely sit lower in their heads than ours do, making room for the ear stuff up top.

[Simond]

Semi-serious question, how would those ears actually work? Isn't there a whole bunch of inner workings to ears that need space that is occupied by brain there?

[Fordel]

The area on our skulls that are taken up by ear stuff would not be so for catgirls; you'll notice on humans that the brain is more or less L-shaped, coming up from the spinal column and curving over our ears.  Their brains would likely sit lower in their heads than ours do, making room for the ear stuff up top.

That makes sense to me. I'll allow it. 



Trippy, cat skulls are shaped different then people skulls!

[Signe]

This game is still on sale for half price.  Until tomorrow, I think.  Even the digital collector's edition if you're feeling spendy.

[luckton]

For $15 bucks I'll give it a shot.  Maybe I just didn't approach it properly during the beta or something. 

[luckton]

Is there a particular server everyone is on, or is everyone in their own gaming group isolated?

[Sutro]

I'm on Exodus and I'll do some helping out if you want to come here.

Bandwagons welcome.

[Sutro]

I've been playing for exactly a month now and I've got one battle class and one crafter class maxxed; battle class is currently doing the opening to the top end-game dungeon. So, with that said...

...right now's an excellent time to jump in here. It's fun enough if you can muscle yourself to do another (much, much prettier) WoW iteration. The progression to end-game is very strange at the moment because there's a big skip in iLevels to the final dungeon, but that's being addressed in 2.1 in mid-December - the patch that's also putting in PvP. 2.1 is making out to be a 'miracle' patch.

If you started right now-ish, you'll probably hit 50 right around the time 2.1 lands at which point you'll have a very, very smooth progression to Coil of Bahamut, the final dungeon. Of course, people who have been playing since the beginning will still be stuck there until presumptively 2.2, but not your problem, ay?

Recommendations:

- One of the easier ways I've found to start out is to begin in Gridania and start out working Botany, Leatherworking, Carpentry, Lancer and Archer all to around level 20. Why? All of the starting five skills (save Conjurer) in Gridania complement one another. Botany gathers items for Carpentry, Carpentry produces weapons for Lancer/Archer, Leatherworking produces items for Carpentry, Lancer and Archer. Believe it or not you can take all of those to 20 in probably two days (Leatherworking will hit a wall around 15 for you.)

By level 20 you should have a good idea of if you enjoy the melee or ranged style better, and you can make more educated decisions about where you want to go from there. At the same time, you've unlocked some vital cross-class skills that you'll want to have on any martial class (and in the case of Archer, Raging Strikes is a skill you will want on basically any class except for healer.) The carpentry and leatherworker x-class crafting skills at 15 are both useful. Doing the crafting at the same time also allows you to take gil reward instead of gear reward, which is very important economy wise.  buy as little as possible from the market and enter level 50 with a good 'cushion' of money that will help you outfit a crafter to start taking OTHER people's hard earned quest gil.

One other piece of advice - do as many FATEs as possible while leveling in your zones and largely avoid any quests that aren't attached to the main story or to your class (i.e., a fireball, not a regular 'Q' quest icon.). Work your hunting log in your lancer/archer at the same time; the hunting log will provide 3-4 levels on its own and if you keep them balanced in xp they will follow the same zone progression and save a lot of travel time and running around. You'll see the wisdom in this later on when you decide you want to do another class and you have a few untouched quest hubs left to help out.

[Falconeer]

Finally caved in and went to buy it a few minutes ago. It is back to full price.

[Reg]

I ordered it from Amazon a couple of days ago for only $9.99. And in Canada! I don't know how long it'll be before I have time to actually play it but I'll leave it in the box and not install it until I'm ready to use the free month.

[Rokal]

Finally caved in and went to buy it a few minutes ago. It is back to full price.

Still discounted on Amazon (at least in the US).

[Falconeer]

That's awesome advice but I can't buy it apparently due to region locks. <Only available to US customers> BAH!

[luckton]

Hopped onto to Gilgamesh server and rolled a Gladiator.  Dinged 11 this morning after doing the grand tour through the city, doing the class quests and initial city stuffs.  Dabbled in Mining a little bit, and decided to just stick with combat stuffs for a little longer.

Having a much better time than I did in beta, and 10x better than ver.1. 

[Falconeer]

After messing for three straight hours with the nightmarish Amazon region locks and the abysmal Square Enix account management services, I finally secured a copy (actually two) of this for about 11€, which is lovely. See you soon in game, cat girls.

[zumu]

I'm on gilgamesh as well. I've got a couple of classes in the mid-levels from when I burnt out last time. Also, I have a few friends who stuck with it and are on coil t5.

At the time of relaunch, gilgamesh was one of the highest populated servers. Not sure how to check population statistics now.

[Senses]

Some good info:  I get all giddy when Yoshi talks.

Reinheart Translations! 2.1 and 2.2
Just some excerpts:

- Primal Extreme mode loot and Crystal Tower loot will have a 1 week lockout. You have to beat all three EM Primals to loot one item.
- Dungeon EXP increased by 150% from base EXP. On top of that you can put random roulette bonus + rest bonus. About 3x more than now.
- Treasure Hunt - When you try to open chest there is a trap spawning mobs. Can be soloed, however Grade 5 should have PT to win fight.
- Treasure Hunt - Gatherer finds map, but only battle class can open since it spawns mobs.
- Beastmen daily quest - In patch 2.1 will have quest for 2 beastmen tribes, in future will have episodes for all tribes.
- YoshiP mentions they are going to have FFXIV up on Steam
- Patch 2.2 will have about 1.5 times more than 2.1's amount of story
- YoshiP explains in future HM and EM primal battles coming and gives example for 2.2 will have HM/EM Leviathan.
- PvP will have rank - At 2.1 you can rank up to 30.
- YoshiP mentions every patch will have 2 HM dungeons and 1 completely new dungeon. Post expansion will have harder dungeon than BC.
- YoshiP mentions the cost for housing is still not decided, they are still looking at the economy to decide carefully.
- Once you place a furniture in your house, you can't sell them on market. (im hoping a preview system will be in place too)
- Primal EM - Aside from ilvl90 weapon reward, Primals drop chest which has high level accessories. (!!)
- Moggle Mog battle difficulty is in between Garuda HM and Titan HM. If you can beat Garuda but can't beat Titan, this is for you.
- New dungeon Sirius will be the current hardest 4 player dungeon.

[Azuredream]

Just got the game recently, on Brynhildr- I never looked at anything FF14, so I have no idea how it used to be, but I'm having lots of fun so far. It's been a while since I've subbed to an MMO so that helps the anti-burnout factor. I love the fact that you can hit 50 in every class on one character. I also love that the # of skills seems pretty low from what I'm used to. Even if I don't play this beyond a couple months, it was so cheap it'll more than be worth the money.

[Signe]

I'm disappointed that individual player housing isn't included in the update.  I was mostly looking forward to that, especially for storage and crafting.  Right now I mostly craft in that PvP instance lobby or whatever it is because you can call your retainers there.  You can't craft in your inn room, which would be okay, and crafting in the crafting areas and other places is just a pain in the arse.  I might quit when my sub runs out and then resub for player housing.

Dammit.

[koro]

An interview with Famitsu let slip that they're planning to add a fourth distinct class role, Hybrid, to accomodate classes that the current trifecta doesn't, like Red Mage.

[zumu]

Since no one has posted it yet, here's a link to the official trailer for 2.1.

It's somewhat froth-worthy if you're a complete sucker like myself.

[luckton]

Still at it.  Ding 17 GLA and finished my starting town quest's chain.  Did the Airship fly through of the other city-states.  Picked up Armorer so's I could make stuff and have something different to do in between slashing stuff.

I would have to agree with the earlier comment that it appears Square may have successfully un-fucked their game with a well played mulligan.  It's a throwback to the days of grind-fests and certain group mechanics, but the fresh coat of paint, multiple leveling options, and the story are keeping me enthralled at this point.  Hell, that I made it past level 8, which was as high as I got in FFXI before hitting the "you either group-up to play or fuck-off" wall, is saying something  

I suppose my only 'complaint' at this point is the lack of variety in skills at the low level, but I suppose WoW and others have just spoiled me. 

[Senses]

I too noticed the lack of skills and thought it was odd, but unlike the WoW model, you don't get all your skills at lvl 10 and then get better versions of them every 5 levels.  You get pretty distinct game changing skills with time that will dramatically change your class into your job.  A lot of these even change the pacing of your class which makes up for that 2.5 second GCD.  Whatever you think of your class, don't get too happy or sad because you will spend a lot more time in your chosen job and its going to be very different.

[Falconeer]

I also heard that you can pick one skill from any other class/job that you level up which basically means that you will have a bunch of skills at 50 (cap) over the ones your class comes equipped with.

[luckton]

I also heard that you can pick one skill from any other class/job that you level up which basically means that you will have a bunch of skills at 50 (cap) over the ones your class comes equipped with.

You get like a max of 6 cross-over skills or something at 50.  You just have to level the other classes to 50 to unlock them.  NO PROBLEM!   

Anywho, dinged 18 and got Shield Slam, along with going back to my trainer for the lvl 15 quest and got Shield Throw.  Gettin' that old Paladin feel back, baby!

Raised Armorer to 10 through Guildleves and class quests.  Another complaint; quick synthesis may be "quicker" than doing it regular for mass quantity stuff, but the delay between each craft is still a drag.  I did upkeep on my Tiny Death Star from top to bottom in the time is took to crank out 30 bronze bars for the lvl 10 class quest.

[koro]

Post-30, each Job (Scholar, Paladin, Black Mage, etc.) can take a selection of cross-class skills from two different base classes (Arcanist, Gladiator, Thaumaturge, etc.), but not from any other. For instance, my Scholar can pull skills from Thaumaturge and Conjurer, but not from, say... Archer.

Base classes get a ton of cross-class slots, but Jobs at 30 they drop down to 3, and get back up to 5 or so by 50. Most skills that are cross-classed are learned fairly early on, but there are exceptions like Swiftcast or Stoneskin.

Also, any cross-class skill you learn and slot can be used at level 1 in a class that can use it, even if it's not learned til much later, so a level 1 Conjurer can use a Thaumaturge's level 26 Swiftcast. However, if you're Level Syncing on a Job, stuff you cross-class tends to stop working, usually in FATEs.

[Senses]

I also heard that you can pick one skill from any other class/job that you level up which basically means that you will have a bunch of skills at 50 (cap) over the ones your class comes equipped with.

You get like a max of 6 cross-over skills or something at 50.  You just have to level the other classes to 50 to unlock them.  NO PROBLEM!   

Anywho, dinged 18 and got Shield Slam, along with going back to my trainer for the lvl 15 quest and got Shield Throw.  Gettin' that old Paladin feel back, baby!

Raised Armorer to 10 through Guildleves and class quests.  Another complaint; quick synthesis may be "quicker" than doing it regular for mass quantity stuff, but the delay between each craft is still a drag.  I did upkeep on my Tiny Death Star from top to bottom in the time is took to crank out 30 bronze bars for the lvl 10 class quest.

From a leveling perspective, never use quick synthesis because you lose like 90pct of the potential xp for crafting something.  Even if you don't get a high quality item, the higher you raise the bar the more xp you will get.  Even at max levels I usually run a macro to synthesize individual components because I'm going to be able to turn No Quality items into High Quality ones which is essentially where the profit comes.  One of  the few things Quick Synthesis is good for is spirit bonding equipment.  You get like +1 bond every synthesis and you don't even have to be in front of the computer.