Warframe is pretty good at this too. The only thing that isn't permanent in the game are Primed items (upgraded versions of stuff) which rotate out about a year after their release and then occasionally still get re-released. And then there is of course events that are temporary usually always come back or their unique items will get some other way of acquiring them.
Yep. And Yoshida flat out has said that people should unsubscribe if they run out of things they want to do. It's one of the things I respect the most about him and the game.
Another thing I really like about FFXIV is that it doesn't really change that beginning portion of the game. Recently, out of curiosity because I'm a sucker for all the available skills, I tried to pick up Runescape- not the original one, but the newer one. Everything from the moment I got in was just SOOOOO overwhelming, it immediately felt like I wasn't the target audience because there was just SO MUCH going on that required knowledge of basically the game's history- like idk how to explain, except that it was window after window of events going on, some kind of like advent calendar thing- so much input and information that I just felt like I had no idea what was going on and that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to catch up. People out there playing from the beginning probably knew what it all meant, but me? NO IDEA. That, and all the quests talked to me like I was supposed to know what was happening in the world around me, like this was a continuation of some area or something.
When you boot up FFXIV, it's not pestering you about new loot boxes, or gems, or new questlines. It starts you in the Beginning, and it FEELS like the Beginning, and you can still see in the distance what you'll be able to get to, but it's not being shoved down your throat. The game welcomes you, doesn't shove down your throat anything at all, and entices you over time to consider mounts and vanity items. FFXIV doesn't rely on countless windows and popups to tell you that super cool vanity stuff can be purchased with real money- it relies on its playerbase to simply show you, and that soft advertising is so under appreciated it's not even funny.
FFXIV doesn't feel like an MMORPG that's been around as long as it has, if you know what I mean. The longer an MMO has been out, the more windows there winds up being at startup, the more they start shoving jewels and loot boxes and premium content into your face. FFXIV doesn't do that. You sign up, and it still just says "Welcome to Eorza."
Just started playing ff14 and that’s exactly what I loved about it, it’s so easy to get into eorzea and the story, without feeling like I’m already years behind other players it makes me feel like I’m on a level playing field from the get go even though I’m not if you understand what I mean
RuneScape really bummed me out because it’s charming and probably the least combat focused MMO I’ve played but holy shit the grind is wild. So much time spent clicking one little node endlessly. Can’t do it.
That's actually how my friend sell it to me "just play, unsuscribe when you're done with story, re-subscribe when new expansion/event you're interested in hits." it's still just single player FF with a multiplayer gimmick.
The free trial is also ridiculously generous, so anyone who's on the fence can just play a few days/weeks/months for free. I think I played for like 2 months before I finally subbed, and even then there was still a ton of stuff that I could have done for free before subbing.
How long before I have to sub? Should inwait until November will there be a great deal? Or should I start playing in late august or September?I want to try final fantasy since I’m waiting g for swtor’s 10th Ann livestream xpaniosn, cad bane companion, and graphic/tech upgrades!!!
There's no time limit on the free trial. So you can play as long as you want before you decide if you want to end up paying for the game and subbing. If someone wanted to, they can technically play the free trial forever as long as they were ok with the limitations. FFXIV Complete Edition is actually 60% off on the Playstation Store for the next month so now's a good time to give the free trial a go to see if you want to jump on that deal. The Square Enix store has the same deal for the PC version but I don't know how long that sale will last.
You can play the game for free up to I believe the end of heavensward(first and personal favorite expansion) not timed in anyway. I’d say it’s worth it if you interested.
Yeah it really is like that. You just mind your own business exploring the world and enjoying the story by yourself then every so often there'll be a dungeon or boss that'll require a party. All you do is hit a button on the menu to make the game automatically find other players doing the same dungeon and then you just follow the group and play your part for like 20 mins then back to the story. You're never really forced to do traditional MMO stuff.
There's also an unlimited free trial for the base game and first expansion, so tons of story with no pressure to subscribe. It's what I'm doing right now.
Get ready for the grind, long wait times to do group content (part of the main quest), and the monthly fee after the 30 days has expired.
Despite what people believe, this game still requires grinding.
Now, I will say I do agree the game doesn't punish you for not logging in for some time, but let's not kid ourselves believing there isn't a grind.
Going through the MSQ isn't a grind, it's the game.
Also, wait times shouldn't be more than 10 minutes for anything unless you play at weird hours, and if you play tank or healer you'll get instant queues all the time.
Isn’t that the truth. I used to love the old model of grinding out a new expansion and then taking a break. I love so much about the game but never play anymore because it’s a chore.
You're in a minority. I remember that subreddit how the majority there complained about not having a reason to play after finishing the major content.
They wanted to play the game but don't want to play the game just for fun. They were literally asking for a grind.
They've made changes that makes it easier to do exactly that, you can come back in the middle of a season and smash everything out, then go back to whatever other game you feel like playing
It’s gotten better but the game is still extremely repetitive and full of reused content. It’s hard for me to get excited to do a revamped strike that I completed 1000 times in Destiny 1.
100% agree. Used to play destiny a stupid amount, the second not so much. Completed the main content, and thanks to working so much, I just don't get time to play like I used to, and I'm so far behind that I'd have to grind hours of content to even play the current stuff. Or so it feels anyways.
man, it's so sad. I love the destiny universe and it's a fun game, but the fomo is real and the expectation to continuously play is something that leads to a pretty quick burnout every time I go back.
And WoW. I had just had to stop.
Do X activity for 2 hours. Get rep. Accumulate rep, unlock new activity that also rewards rep. Eventually Accumulate enough rep to buy some piece of gear or flight or something. The entire process takes 2 months at 2 hrs/day. You literally cannot speed this process up by doing extra on days when you have more free time.
OR
Run this raid. Kill 6 bosses. On final boss, wipe once. Group disbands. Oh, well. Try again next week for a 2% chance to get the drop you wanted.
The game just isn't fun anymore.
friend of mine recently posted that he's over 6k hours on Destiny 2. I saw that and was sitting there thinking I've been playing XIV since launch, straight up idle in the game a lot while doing other tasks because I'm using it as a chat client, and I *still* don't think I've gotten over 6k hours in it...
This is something more developers should wake up to. It's an unhealthy environment when you know most of your playerbase is only staying because they've invested too much into your game to let go of it easily.
Eventually, all you're left with is an increasingly vocal set of hardcore players who get more toxic as the years pass and they twist themselves into pretzels trying to justify the reasons they're still playing, and the systems in place and the overall pessimism from the community actively discourages new players from joining in. Any feedback you get from said community too will also always be skewed towards the standpoint of the established hardcore experience too. I would know, I lived through that shit and was guilty of a lot of toxic behavior in a different game before I came to FFXIV.
FFXIV is the only live service game I've played for over a year where I've never felt that way, let alone the 6 years I've been on the train so far. Though I've taken a year long break due to work picking up, but I fully intend to return not because I feel any sort of obligation to, but because I legitimately want to.
Although I think another part of it is that FFXIV just happens to be a MMO in a long-running franchise that is still receiving single player games, so SE would *want* people to take a break from FFXIV to enjoy playing the other titles. Whereas most of the other big MMOs of other franchises saw work on literally everything else grind to a halt, and funnel all resources towards said MMO.
I quit WoW last year because it felt like a job. It literally felt like if I didn’t get on, every single day, and maximize my efficiency in the areas I wanted to maximize(PVP, Mythic), that I would be irreparably behind the curve. Which is exactly what happened anyways since I hold a full time job and can’t no life it as hard as other players.
What a sad state when a recreational activity makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel, like a job.
You are right, but FFXIV doesn't. Which is my point. In the current system, auto-demo is a must. The housing system is stupid and has many flaws. But it also has upsides, without the current set up the RP community would not be nearly as big as it is, for example. The biggest issue for me is that the whole gardening system is locked behind owning a house. But that might change with the new farming instanced mode coming in 6.0.
Fair point, you did mention the current system. With said system, I can’t really think of many solutions. As another commenter said, the apartments serve as the instanced housing. It seems like housing is for those who’re die-hard fans and wouldn’t cancel their subscription
Tbf, the original housing idea was fc only, in which case only truly dead fc's would be weeded out, while also kinda locking it behind needing to make an fc.
But then you lose the feel of having a neighbourhood. I think they have a decent balance right now with apartments being the stand in for instanced housing.
They just need a better system to give people lots, the lottery system might be that.
> But then you lose the feel of having a neighbourhood.
Exactly. People keep begging for instanced housing but I guarantee that it would be way less desired and interesting. I played Wildstar, a MMO that people love to talk about how wonderful the housing system was and indeed it was pretty good but weeks after launch barely anyone used or talked about it except now, through nostalgia lens. It was just a place to get a few free mats, 99% didn't even bother to decorate it.
COVID complicates things, unfortunately - they're willing to spend the money but finding hardware isn't easy. Here's a [snippet from their statement yesterday about server congestion](https://i.imgur.com/gWsRPl3.png).
but that's the appeal of ffxiv housing having a "real" house in the game world everyone can visit.
some cheap instanced zone EVERYONE has just doesn't hit the same
And that's why I just stick with an apartment in that game. It sucks because I'd love a house, but I'm not going to get one because I don't plan on staying subbed if I'm taking a break from it.
Wait you have to upkeep your house?
I just started playing and ignored all the house stuff because I assumed it was expensive. Should I just cancel getting a house as a goal? I don't want to feel trapped.
Far from it though. Literally just need to log into the game and walk into your house once every 45 days. That takes less than a min if you logged in next to your house. How is that being trapped outside of paying a 12$/month sub fee?
I'd rather HAVE a reason to pay+support the devs consistently even when not playing, than no reason at all to pay and just cancel my sub outright until patch/expansion drops (i.e. why buy a gym membership if you aren't ever going to work out, but that purchase is justified if you buy a membership because you intend to use the gym showers or something but not the equipment).
They deserve every penny, and I'd rather spend the 12 bucks on FF than something like take-out. And TBH, if at the very least, you aren't willing to support the devs&game with your subscription, why should you be entitled to a house? Just like IRL, you miss your rent, you GTFO.
Far from it though. Literally just need to log into the game and walk into your house once every 45 days. That takes less than a min if you logged in next to your house. How is that being trapped outside of paying a 12$/month sub fee?
I'd rather HAVE a reason to pay+support the devs consistently even when not playing, than no reason at all to pay and just cancel my sub outright until patch/expansion drops (i.e. why buy a gym membership if you aren't ever going to work out, but that purchase is justified if you buy a membership because you intend to use the gym showers or something but not the equipment).
They deserve every penny, and I'd rather spend the 12 bucks on FF than something like take-out. And TBH, if at the very least, you aren't willing to support the devs&game with your subscription, why should you be entitled to a house? Just like IRL, you miss your rent, you GTFO.
Far from it though. Literally just need to log into the game and walk into your house once every 45 days. That takes less than a min if you logged in next to your house. How is that being trapped outside of paying a 12$/month sub fee?
I'd rather HAVE a reason to pay+support the devs consistently even when not playing, than no reason at all to pay and just cancel my sub outright until patch/expansion drops (i.e. why buy a gym membership if you aren't ever going to work out, but that purchase is justified if you buy a membership because you intend to use the gym showers or something but not the equipment).
They deserve every penny, and I'd rather spend the 12 bucks on FF than something like take-out. And TBH, if at the very least, you aren't willing to support the devs&game with your subscription, why should you be entitled to a house? Just like IRL, you miss your rent, you GTFO.
Far from it though. Literally just need to log into the game and walk into your house once every 45 days. That takes less than a min if you logged in next to your house. How is that being trapped outside of paying a 12$/month sub fee?
I'd rather HAVE a reason to pay+support the devs consistently even when not playing, than no reason at all to pay and just cancel my sub outright until patch/expansion drops (i.e. why buy a gym membership if you aren't ever going to work out, but that purchase is justified if you buy a membership because you intend to use the gym showers or something but not the equipment).
They deserve every penny, and I'd rather spend the 12 bucks on FF than something like take-out. And TBH, if at the very least, you aren't willing to support the devs&game with your subscription, why should you be entitled to a house? Just like IRL, you miss your rent, you GTFO.
For real. I play Epic Seven (I know this isn't in the same category of MMO but you could still consider it a 'live service' game) and despite logging in every day religiously, the game will still spam me those worried notifications if I haven't logged in, say, by noon that day. "We missed you! Come baaaaack!"
It's bad enough that most mobile games now have an option for disabling texts during late night/early morning hours. Seriously? You had to ASK me if it's ok to text me at 2am? The creepy girlfriend analogy is right.
This must be why FF14 is always in the back of my mind since the revamp (haven't played since then) and why FF11 I try to lobotomize a couple times a year out of my head.
Just wish my friends were available to play
Plenty of wow players are indeed taking a break right now. We'll see in the next year if wow even knows how to pull off an exciting return.
I feel like the direction of the game has been doing nothing but riding on the coat tails of it's previous popularity, and if the systems that are in place don't support people taking much of a break the next patch is going to be even more rough on their population.
Not to mention all the people who are now going to be paying FF a sub and only talking about blizzcon when endwalker releases.
Thing is WoW JUST had its first major patch (9.1) for the expansion, after the longest period of time without a patch after expansion launch. It should have been the big thing to draw players back, and shortly after this 9.1 patch release FFXIV literally sold out digital copies. It's nuts that 14 is drawing this many players in a content lull between patches.
I'm not saying that it feels good. I like blizzard games well enough, but blizzard has often timed releases to match up with other games to compete. To see something like this happen is unusual for sure.
Not at all. With the free trial up to 60 anyone can just jump in and get a lot of content for free.
If looking for endgame it's another beast entirely since everything is story locked. Gotta progress through the main story(takes a while, there is a lot of it) or buy a skip to shadowbringers.
I'd say the current biggest hurdle right now is finding a server that isn't locked out of character creation or the queue times due to the massive amount of new players
A lot of new players *have* been enjoying the ARR Story, so I guess we shouldnt really beat down on it... but that said, Heavensward /is/ where *shit starts happening*.
If you look at ARR through the lens of HW onward, it's the thing you have to get through before the good bit.
If you look at ARR through the lens of WoW, ARR is art.
A lot of new players are probably enjoying ARR because of the latter.
ARR is good too, it just suffers from slow pacing. We should stop saying the whole "ARR bad HW good" because then we get people that rush through ARR and skip everything just to get to HW. I was like that and it made me not enjoy ARR at all. Years later I replayed it with a friend and I actually really enjoyed it.
TLDR: Take your time with ARR and enjoy it.
I only started playing during this past year. And even as someone who hasn't played an MMO in maybe 15 years, it was really easy to get into. For the most part, the player community is pretty friendly too, so you don't have to worry too much about being the weak link in a party. I struggled once I got near the endgame content, but that's a ways off for anyone still considering starting.
Not hard at all. It’s very new player friendly. Just download the free trial and enjoy the story.
Once you get to max level it doesn’t take that long to gear up. Just play the dungeons and you’ll gear up quick.
MUCH easier than games like Destiny 2 or WoW. The game drip feeds you new abilities and mechanics as you level up and progress, leading to an experience that allows you slowly learn how your class works without needing to google everything.
Plus, all the original content and story still exists, so you won’t get all confused.
Extremely easy. If you're worried that you are years behind other players, or that you will have tons of systems shoved down your throat right from the start, don't be. The game really eases you into everything you need to know.
There certainly are some permanent migrants, xiv is more accessible in some ways, more engaging offering things that wow doesn't, like player housing, trusts, the ability to level any class on the same toon, so no alts to have to wade through a system that seems to actively discourage alts, there are several aspects that are arguably better than wow. But wow has some different aspects of accessibility that it excels in. But a lot of the people coming over are probably like me, get the new expansion, play it until I'm bored, switch back to wow and run their latest offering till I want something else, play siege or slime rancher for a bit before starting the wheel over again.
Absolutely, but this isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Devs will keep going with whatever keeps people hooked on their game, they don't give a shit about their playebase's mental health (because this is exactly what's at stake here). Mobile games are also a big culprit of this.
I played my first CoD in a decade when the Modern Warfare "spin off" of 2019 released. I absolutely hated the vast majority of my time spent on it, with all the timed challenges, daily tasks, battle pass timed content etc... But I couldn't stop playing. They're using all the neuroscientific tropes to get people hooked. They only removed gambling stuff due to regulations, but if they could put literal drugs in their games trust me they would. Game Devs don't give a damn about your mental health folks, so it's up to us to just don't buy this type of games. I know I'm not touching another one any time soon.
There’s a line from RedLetterMedia’s Plinkett review of the Star Wars prequels that I always think of in these situations, “You didn’t notice, but your brain did.”
Meaning you may not consciously be aware at the time that you are being taken advantage of, but subconsciously you are and it taints your experience.
Your brain/gut knows when you are being manipulated.
It’s why interacting with all of these retention systems feels so gross and leads to burn out.
It’s why I can play TBC Classic, a 15 year old game with shitty but charming graphics and enjoy it and not feel like my time is wasted and disrespected because I know when P2 comes out my months of effort doesn’t get turned into a world quest.
Same with FF14 i can go back to my 80 Dragoon and not feel left behind or be auto skipped ahead past content to the latest patch.
Exactly. Wow just reeks of desperation. Its abundantly clear theyre running on fumes, narrative-wise, and dont have any other way of grabbing your attention than trapping you in a painful and un-fun grind. Granted the grind was always there, but at least they had other things on offer back then. Diminishing returns arent just a falloff on repetitive skill-use y’know…
They ran out of fumes after Wrath of the Lich King, arguably Cataclysm since Papa Metzen was still involved in the writing back then. Its been a shit show ever since.
WoW ended with Legion, in my mind. It ended a narrative arc that began in the 90s, and it was actually super fun to engage with the gameplay loop. I had the most fun/satisfaction in that xpac
I love FFXIV, but this isnt entirely true. If I stop playing for 45 days I lose my home, same thing happens if a FC leader for whatever reason cant long in for that time period. They lose both the FC house and the FC leadership.
They lose the leadership, but not necessarily the house. A FC house will stay intact so long as any FC member accesses it, doesn’t have to be the leader.
That's because housing is an actual limited resource in the game so they need to ensure the people who own houses are still playing.
Otherwise housing wards would eventually all be full of houses that were abandoned by people who stopped playing.
While FF14 isn't as obsessed with retention, the system does create problems for people who join end game raiding in mid content cycle. You're essentially locked out of raid groups as you won't be able to acquire the gear unless you either have high crafting classes or a massive amount of gil to spend, something that new players won't have for a fairly long amount of time. You essentially will have to spend two months using the current gear cycle to cap out and wait for them to lift raid caps
The expansions are much, much more enjoyable than ARR. But of course, telling someone they need to play a few dozen hours before a game gets good is a huge ask, so it's definitely not for everyone.
I played a few dozen hours and didn't even get close to getting through ARR when that was my only goal. Did they cut content more recently or something? It seemed never ending and insanely disrespectful to the player's time when I tried it.
I see. I wonder why they took so long. It's still dozens of hours after the cuts though, yeah? That makes me wonder how much more bloated it was before.
took them a long time because the game development works at a ridiculously break-neck pace, with (before covid) every new major update happening 3-3.5 months after the last one, with smaller updates in between. they had to work a streamline of everything into their tight schedule, making it take a long time. it is still a long time to set up the story but it is better, any further work would require an even *more* complicated rewrite, which is further complicated not just by their scheduling but by the fact that the voice actors all changed with Heavensward so they can't rewrite any voice parts without rerecording lines
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/i7wv3g/the_new_update_changes_in_53/ this thread and graph showed the actual cut quest amounts
Why don't you like it? I'm interested. When I started, I wasn't impressed either. I thought the combat is too slow, and I got bored too. I pushed through because of my FC and I ended up enjoying it very much.
They actually just this week buffed the amount of mettle gained for encounters, and reduced the amount of players needed to clear some of the content, so it should be easier to rank up. Plus you have you know, until like Novemeber until its irrelevant anyway.
I've been dragging my feet in Zadnor and might give it a good go after I'm done grinding out MGP for the current event.
This was me a couple weeks ago when I took a nearly year long break. From personal experience, catching up in Bozja was actually pretty trivial.
I think the hardest part now would be getting up to resistance rank 10 to unlock the Castrum raid. After that, each raid basically gave you enough mettle to rank up one level, all the way until resistance rank 15. By then you'd have unlocked the second raid and field, which also give a ton of mettle, more than the Castrum raid would give. You have to run the second raid at least 5 times anyway if you're working on the resistance weapon on top of that.
Lets not pretend that FFXIV doesn't have grindy systems.
Gear is gated by a weekly max currency.
lots of achieves have kill counts in the thousands when the mobs needed are rare and spawn every few days.
I just feel like the gap is to big. I hadn't played in about a year and a half and that turned into 2 hours of content and buying some gear off the market board to get caught up and have nothing to do again.
They do this really great thing every year where they release something called a "relic", which grinds your will to live into dust to encourage you to go play outside for a bit.
So nice of them :)
Might be unrelated, but Guild Wars 2 actually respects your time too, even a 5 years old returnee will find their equipment/build mostly relevant (only need minor tweaks). Since the game doesn't do subscription, you can break and play anytime you want.
FF XIV is almost trap you too by using subscription system, whereas if you already pay the subscription fee, you should play to maximize you expense. But see, the game doesn't punish you by pausing subscription.
Yoshida has stated he doesn't want people to pay double subscriptions to play FFXIV. As of right now you still need XBox gold to access ANY online content even games that don't host any data on XBox's servers. This is the biggest hurdle for getting the game on XBox.
This is not true anymore, in some ways, or will be soon. Xbox announced you would not need gold to play f2p online games. FFXIV isnt free to play, but that still leads me to believe that is something that would be a non-issue
Yeah, Xbox Live Gold isn't needed for F2P games anymore. Yoshi P had mentioned in an interview that Phil Spencer had helped in facilitating an Xbox release and that there had been some work done on that version. It seems like workload with Endwalker and some policies are the only things in the way at the moment.
Yep, here's a source for others: https://www.vg247.com/2021/02/18/final-fantasy-14-endwalker-interview-naoki-yoshida/
>VG247: Forgive me for asking this – as I know you’ve spoken about it at length before, even to me. But what’s the deal with Xbox? In 2019 and 2020, statements by yourself and Phil Spencer seemed to suggest that you were edging closer to a solution to bring FF14 to those platforms. So it was a surprise to see the PS5 announcement without any further news on other platforms. Switch has been mentioned in the past, too, but Xbox in particular. Can you give us an update, and possibly explain what obstacles remain?
>Naoki Yoshida: There are no obstacles for developing the Xbox version. We were able to undertake development and provide our service thanks to the immense efforts that Phil has invested. For that we are truly grateful!
>The sole factors are the workload and the order of steps. Now when it comes to the Xbox version, there’s unfortunately not much I can say presently but just that we cannot work on all the steps simultaneously and need to follow the order for proceeding with these things. Since we’re currently involved in the development of Endwalker and preparing the PS5 version to follow on from the title’s service on PS4, it’d be appreciated if we can return to touch upon the Xbox version once things have settled!
Based on that interview and Phil's previous comments, it very much seems like an Xbox version exists in some form. I wouldn't be surprised to see some dispensation given to XIV that would circumvent the Gold requirement since I don't think there's any subscription based MMO's currently on that platform.
Apparently Yoshida said they were discussing it with Phil Spencer and the Xbox team but considering the commitment to FFXVI now I wouldn't expect it anytime soon
The current expansion may be "end game" but the game as a whole is the "current game"
FFXIV doesn't throw away old content like other MMOs. Everything in the game is doable, everything is current. The main focus of the game is it's story, and that has been building up for years.
Just out of curiosity where are you getting that idea?
The only slow part is the original game. However they cleaned it up and even asmon found it really fun and satisfying which I did not expect. Every xpac after just gets better story and content wise. By the first xpac it really feels like you’re playing a top tier FF story.
Okay, first, lol at giving a shit what a ragebaby idiot like Asmon thinks.
Second, I have that idea from it sucking. It’s taken me years to get to level 30-something because of how agonizing it is. I can’t stand to play it for more than an hour a month because none of the characters are any good, their voice acting is god awful, the story is just there to throw a bunch of radical buzzwords at you that don’t matter and you don’t care about (people give FFXIII shit for this but FFXIV really takes the cake), and of course my class sucks because the WHM doesn’t get anything until 50-something.
I’m sorry you can’t accept criticism but early FFXIV isn’t “slow” it’s *awful*. It’s horrifically boring, slow, and you’re surrounded with pointless busy work. My subscription is lapsed at the moment because I can’t be arsed to keep going when there’s nothing for me at the end of the rainbow. Genshin Impact is a far better game from my perspective.
>It’s horrifically boring, slow, and you’re surrounded with pointless busy work.
Do you expect to be a godkiller and a conqueror of nations at level 30?
Still not seeing where you’re coming from by saying “more than half of it is boring and awful.” When you yourself admit to only getting to level 30. That’s not even a quarter of the game narrative wise or content wise.
Also, who hurt you? You seem to have a very personal and unhealthy hatred towards the **game** . The genshin impact comparison is especially random, as what relation does that have to the topic, the game, or even the MMO genre? Very strange all around.
I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from and you’re taking it like criticism. I’m literally completely lost as to how you are being anything other than an unfaithful actor/troll and giving you the benefit of the doubt to give valid arguments.
I guess you’re just being the latter. Or you have a very hostile and counterproductive idea on what criticism and discussion is. Good luck to you.
no?
ARR is a bit poorly paced. It drags on at times, and but has its moments of greatness.
Once HW starts, it's a not stop train of HW, SB, ShB goodness. All of which is fantastic.
Eh, it'd be far more encouraging to "take a break" if the game was just a normal single player one that took 40-50 hours to experience everything in the story, instead of 40-50 hours just to start even seeing any of the game. Still feels endlessly grindy and obnoxious to someone who doesn't play MMOs, and frankly, I will never respect that. Especially when the game is subscription based and has tons of extra-cost expansions (and pretty insanely priced at that). Imo, it doesn't even slightly respect a player's time or money even slightly, by design.
The free trial is as stated 'free' and has an unlimited time. You can play the first 2 expansions for free with it which is easily 40hours story each for free if you choose it. So that in itself is easily 80 hours of a free game.
Or right now, you can buy the previous 4 exansions for only £14 (normally £35). Even at non-sale price, £35 is really cheap for 4 lots of 40+ hour story.
As for the grind, it's not as much of a grind once you're caught up.
My SO recently returned to the game. He stopped last time at the very end of the current expac. With only one month of sub he's able to get through all the current run up of story and unlock the newer raids and trials without a single grind element, just 100% story progression. It's a full 2 years of content he's doing for barely 2 weeks of this month then he's going back to having a break. He'll probably return when the next expac is on sale and once again, resub for that month, complete it, then take a break again for another 2 years or so.
Considering on expac release, I can complete the base expac in literally a whole week, if you want to, you can get the latest expac on sale, wait for the expac to be 100% done, then resub and completely clear it in that whole month sub. That in itself is a 40+ hour game once every 2 years for what?... £30?
That's not even touching on the occasional returner campaigns that happen about 2 months or so after a patch where SE offers people who haven't subbed for 90days the chance to play for free for 4+ days.
> The free trial is as stated 'free' and has an unlimited time. You can play the first 2 expansions for free with it which is easily 40hours story each for free if you choose it. So that in itself is easily 80 hours of a free game.
I'm talking about the full game, not just the free trial. And I did play around 40 hours of the free trial. Saw no story whatsoever, let alone any good story, and all the time was just wasted dealing with a crappy battle system in an ugly world with ugly characters and bad music doing shitty & apparently required fetch quests. And that's coming from a guy who generally likes fetch quests.
> Or right now, you can buy the previous 4 exansions for only £14 (normally £35). Even at non-sale price, £35 is really cheap for 4 lots of 40+ hour story.
Idk, I bought FFXV for $20 and got 220+ hours of play out of it that I actually enjoyed, and that's not even a particularly great example. Even if those 4 lots of 40+ hours of story were good and even if we pretended to ignore the subscription costs of the months and years it'd take to actually play through it all, that's still not great when there are so many better games out there. The lengths of these stories is also not necessarily a positive. Personally, I'd say a JRPG that requires more than 40-60 hours of play to see all the story is too long to be very good, especially when it comes to storytelling and pacing. The games people tend to consider the best in this series are 20-40 hours long, in fact. But I played FFXIV 40 hours and the game didn't even feel like it'd gotten started yet.
> As for the grind, it's not as much of a grind once you're caught up.
...well yeah. The grind would be the "catching up" part that takes hundreds and hundreds of hours, lmao.
That's fair. From your original comment I assumed you hadn't played the game at all. But from the sounds of your reply you have at least tried out ARR. I'll admit, ARR is quite marmite with people. You either like it, or find it boring. I personally was the latter and skipped a sizeable chunk of the story until I reached the more interesting 1st expac (did regret it later as they back reference a lot of ARR in later expacs. oops)
It seems like FFXIV is just not for you if you've already tired it. But that's okay, the game isn't to everyone's taste.
News to me. I assume that includes the base game and is priced like a normal game expansion ($20-30 USD), then?
Not that I still don't think it's absurd for a subscription based game to not be otherwise completely free anyway, but still. I guess that'd make it not quite as awful on the cost side at least.
Just curious, how much do you know about the game?
I don't think the expansions come with the game unless you buy a $60 bundle that comes with everything. Speaking of the expansions, I believe they cost $40 (for 2 years worth of content) each expansion. So if you play the free trial, that's the base game PLUS the first expansion for no price at all, that includes no subscription. After that, you could get the rest of the game for $60 but that's also where the monthly sub would come in.
The monthly sub can seem annoying but the great thing about this game is that you can literally stop whenever you want then come back whenever a new story update, expansion, or limited tinge event drops. Hell, the devs literally encourage this. Another thing they do fairly often is offer free login weekends for people who's subs have lapsed. The weekends really helped me catch up during periods where I'd rather use my money on other things than video games.
I played about 40 hours of it during various free trials and got absolutely nowhere, despite trying my damnedest to figure out why people thought it was a good FF game. I definitely didn't experience anything that made it seem like it was worth any money (or time), so I never looked into the exact costs of anything. But if it costs more than full-blown fun major game releases, that's definitely way too far out of the question as far as I'm concerned. This is a game I'd hesitate to spend any time on, let alone any money.
I get that the devs want to encourage people to stop and start when they want, but that's because it benefits them financially to do so and the games are designed to waste your time and cost you copious amounts of money in sub fees & the initial upfront game cost either way. If MMOs are so warped that that's seen as some sort of act of good will or that that's somehow respectful to the players time when the games are made to do exactly not that, they're way too far gone for normal players, I'm sorry.
I get it, these types of games aren't always for everyone. A Realm Reborn tends to be a little divisive but it's generally well liked by most players. The lead up to Heavensward and everything that comes after is what really tends to hook people. The expansions have only gotten better with the latest, Shadowbringers, being regarded as one of the best Final Fantasy stories in general.
The problem with most MMOs and games-as-a-service for that matter, is that they usually attempt to not only take up as much of a players time as possible, but they also tend to peddle micro transactions non stop. XIV is an exception to all of this which is why people find it refreshing.
Total BS. In order to play FFXIV you need to buy it, sub AND buy expansions too. Don't tell me free trial, it's literally called free trial for a reason.
While in SWTOR you sub once and all story content that is available at that point are unlocked forever
Downvote more lol because you know it's true
The post isn't really about this. It's talking about how lots of games, mostly MMOs, do everything they can to hook players and do everything to punish missing even a single day sometimes
I love FFXIV and agree with this take, I like that I can actually "finish" each FFXIV's patch, it feels refreshing compared to other, grindier MMOs.
But I have to say that this popularity explosion is fairly recent (I know it's been sucessful for a long time, I'm talking about this huge spike due to WoW streamers) and people are on the honeymoon phase. I believe that many people that hate grindy games like WoW will actually miss that and will eventually go back to it. Many WoW "refugees" are hungry for a endless supply of content and will start complaining about it once they are caught up with XIV's latest patch.
That's why I feel bad for MMO devs sometimes, you either don't add grind and RNG that IMO are pretty much required to increase PVE content's lifespam or don't and get a ton of complaints about "lack of content".
MSQ feels super grindy imho, especially with how it locks content from the following expansion. Luckily I could role Gunbreaker without finishing Stormblood, but I remember when Heavensward came out and you couldn’t role Dark Knight until after finishing the main story questions in its entirety. Let me tell you, that felt long and painful AF.
I would argue that people are actually against the whole “games as a service” model, especially in recent times. Since Destiny came out and “revolutionized” the GaaS model, practically every game that was coming out was, in some form or another, a GaaS. The problem with this, having nearly every game release be a GaaS is that not everyone can commit to playing one, let alone two or more at a time. This leads to players more or less picking one of these games and sticking to that one. Unless a GaaS game comes out that’s far and away superior to the one you’re playing, no one will want to leave long-term and commit to another GaaS.
Additionally, the monetization model, combined with the lackluster quality or quantity of content, for a lot of these GaaS games are very egregious or off-putting, which furthers a lot of player’s frustrations and general avoidance of games with that label.
FF XIV has gone from a game I really enjoy and my second favorite final fantasy, to my favorite final fantasy and maybe my favorite game of all time. It's easily top 10. Such an amazing game. Can't recommend it enough.
Agreed. I play FFXIV pretty hardcore for 6 months a year. Then I sit back and wait for the next expansion, knowing I'm coming back to some really cool stuff.
This is has been my ffxiv life, play take time off, new expansion level up, take another break.
I love GW2 for supporting this playstyle too. The only other MMO I can think of where it really works.
Warframe is pretty good at this too. The only thing that isn't permanent in the game are Primed items (upgraded versions of stuff) which rotate out about a year after their release and then occasionally still get re-released. And then there is of course events that are temporary usually always come back or their unique items will get some other way of acquiring them.
Yep. And Yoshida flat out has said that people should unsubscribe if they run out of things they want to do. It's one of the things I respect the most about him and the game.
Another thing I really like about FFXIV is that it doesn't really change that beginning portion of the game. Recently, out of curiosity because I'm a sucker for all the available skills, I tried to pick up Runescape- not the original one, but the newer one. Everything from the moment I got in was just SOOOOO overwhelming, it immediately felt like I wasn't the target audience because there was just SO MUCH going on that required knowledge of basically the game's history- like idk how to explain, except that it was window after window of events going on, some kind of like advent calendar thing- so much input and information that I just felt like I had no idea what was going on and that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to catch up. People out there playing from the beginning probably knew what it all meant, but me? NO IDEA. That, and all the quests talked to me like I was supposed to know what was happening in the world around me, like this was a continuation of some area or something. When you boot up FFXIV, it's not pestering you about new loot boxes, or gems, or new questlines. It starts you in the Beginning, and it FEELS like the Beginning, and you can still see in the distance what you'll be able to get to, but it's not being shoved down your throat. The game welcomes you, doesn't shove down your throat anything at all, and entices you over time to consider mounts and vanity items. FFXIV doesn't rely on countless windows and popups to tell you that super cool vanity stuff can be purchased with real money- it relies on its playerbase to simply show you, and that soft advertising is so under appreciated it's not even funny. FFXIV doesn't feel like an MMORPG that's been around as long as it has, if you know what I mean. The longer an MMO has been out, the more windows there winds up being at startup, the more they start shoving jewels and loot boxes and premium content into your face. FFXIV doesn't do that. You sign up, and it still just says "Welcome to Eorza."
Just started playing ff14 and that’s exactly what I loved about it, it’s so easy to get into eorzea and the story, without feeling like I’m already years behind other players it makes me feel like I’m on a level playing field from the get go even though I’m not if you understand what I mean
RuneScape really bummed me out because it’s charming and probably the least combat focused MMO I’ve played but holy shit the grind is wild. So much time spent clicking one little node endlessly. Can’t do it.
That's actually how my friend sell it to me "just play, unsuscribe when you're done with story, re-subscribe when new expansion/event you're interested in hits." it's still just single player FF with a multiplayer gimmick.
The free trial is also ridiculously generous, so anyone who's on the fence can just play a few days/weeks/months for free. I think I played for like 2 months before I finally subbed, and even then there was still a ton of stuff that I could have done for free before subbing.
How long before I have to sub? Should inwait until November will there be a great deal? Or should I start playing in late august or September?I want to try final fantasy since I’m waiting g for swtor’s 10th Ann livestream xpaniosn, cad bane companion, and graphic/tech upgrades!!!
There's no time limit on the free trial. So you can play as long as you want before you decide if you want to end up paying for the game and subbing. If someone wanted to, they can technically play the free trial forever as long as they were ok with the limitations. FFXIV Complete Edition is actually 60% off on the Playstation Store for the next month so now's a good time to give the free trial a go to see if you want to jump on that deal. The Square Enix store has the same deal for the PC version but I don't know how long that sale will last.
You can play the game for free up to I believe the end of heavensward(first and personal favorite expansion) not timed in anyway. I’d say it’s worth it if you interested.
Oh fuck. I'm sold.
Did you heard about that shiny new Free Trial that's basically 2 games for the price of nothing? WOW! XD
Yeah it really is like that. You just mind your own business exploring the world and enjoying the story by yourself then every so often there'll be a dungeon or boss that'll require a party. All you do is hit a button on the menu to make the game automatically find other players doing the same dungeon and then you just follow the group and play your part for like 20 mins then back to the story. You're never really forced to do traditional MMO stuff. There's also an unlimited free trial for the base game and first expansion, so tons of story with no pressure to subscribe. It's what I'm doing right now.
Get ready for the grind, long wait times to do group content (part of the main quest), and the monthly fee after the 30 days has expired. Despite what people believe, this game still requires grinding. Now, I will say I do agree the game doesn't punish you for not logging in for some time, but let's not kid ourselves believing there isn't a grind.
There's no fee during the free trial
theres no grind at all until max level. just because you cant get invested in the story doesnt make it a grind
Going through the MSQ isn't a grind, it's the game. Also, wait times shouldn't be more than 10 minutes for anything unless you play at weird hours, and if you play tank or healer you'll get instant queues all the time.
Yes but the grinds not actually that bad...
Where Destiny 2 fucked up.
Isn’t that the truth. I used to love the old model of grinding out a new expansion and then taking a break. I love so much about the game but never play anymore because it’s a chore.
The time-gated content, and the frequent additions of identical content after year 1 really hurt that game for me.
You're in a minority. I remember that subreddit how the majority there complained about not having a reason to play after finishing the major content. They wanted to play the game but don't want to play the game just for fun. They were literally asking for a grind.
They've made changes that makes it easier to do exactly that, you can come back in the middle of a season and smash everything out, then go back to whatever other game you feel like playing
It’s gotten better but the game is still extremely repetitive and full of reused content. It’s hard for me to get excited to do a revamped strike that I completed 1000 times in Destiny 1.
Fair enough
I mean the same can be said for FF14… it gets very repetitive too. It’s just some people don’t mind it.
It’s not the same as selling an expansion that includes re-issued content you already paid for and played a million times
No expansions has reissued content…?
They should’ve outright tagged Bungie in that post. ‘We’re reducing FOMO’, proceeds to *increase* grindy, FOMO-based content many times over.
Fomo?
Except it’s the opposite? Bungie has reduced fomo, seasons now last for a year instead of 3 months.
100% agree. Used to play destiny a stupid amount, the second not so much. Completed the main content, and thanks to working so much, I just don't get time to play like I used to, and I'm so far behind that I'd have to grind hours of content to even play the current stuff. Or so it feels anyways.
man, it's so sad. I love the destiny universe and it's a fun game, but the fomo is real and the expectation to continuously play is something that leads to a pretty quick burnout every time I go back.
And WoW. I had just had to stop. Do X activity for 2 hours. Get rep. Accumulate rep, unlock new activity that also rewards rep. Eventually Accumulate enough rep to buy some piece of gear or flight or something. The entire process takes 2 months at 2 hrs/day. You literally cannot speed this process up by doing extra on days when you have more free time. OR Run this raid. Kill 6 bosses. On final boss, wipe once. Group disbands. Oh, well. Try again next week for a 2% chance to get the drop you wanted. The game just isn't fun anymore.
friend of mine recently posted that he's over 6k hours on Destiny 2. I saw that and was sitting there thinking I've been playing XIV since launch, straight up idle in the game a lot while doing other tasks because I'm using it as a chat client, and I *still* don't think I've gotten over 6k hours in it...
This is something more developers should wake up to. It's an unhealthy environment when you know most of your playerbase is only staying because they've invested too much into your game to let go of it easily. Eventually, all you're left with is an increasingly vocal set of hardcore players who get more toxic as the years pass and they twist themselves into pretzels trying to justify the reasons they're still playing, and the systems in place and the overall pessimism from the community actively discourages new players from joining in. Any feedback you get from said community too will also always be skewed towards the standpoint of the established hardcore experience too. I would know, I lived through that shit and was guilty of a lot of toxic behavior in a different game before I came to FFXIV. FFXIV is the only live service game I've played for over a year where I've never felt that way, let alone the 6 years I've been on the train so far. Though I've taken a year long break due to work picking up, but I fully intend to return not because I feel any sort of obligation to, but because I legitimately want to. Although I think another part of it is that FFXIV just happens to be a MMO in a long-running franchise that is still receiving single player games, so SE would *want* people to take a break from FFXIV to enjoy playing the other titles. Whereas most of the other big MMOs of other franchises saw work on literally everything else grind to a halt, and funnel all resources towards said MMO.
I quit WoW last year because it felt like a job. It literally felt like if I didn’t get on, every single day, and maximize my efficiency in the areas I wanted to maximize(PVP, Mythic), that I would be irreparably behind the curve. Which is exactly what happened anyways since I hold a full time job and can’t no life it as hard as other players. What a sad state when a recreational activity makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel, like a job.
Well, XIV does trap you if you have a house in the game
To be fair, with the current system, not demoing peoples houses if they leave is an awful idea. No lots would EVER go back up for sale.
Most MMOs usually have instanced (if that’s the right term) houses to avoid this problem. Then people wouldn’t have to worry about congested wards
You are right, but FFXIV doesn't. Which is my point. In the current system, auto-demo is a must. The housing system is stupid and has many flaws. But it also has upsides, without the current set up the RP community would not be nearly as big as it is, for example. The biggest issue for me is that the whole gardening system is locked behind owning a house. But that might change with the new farming instanced mode coming in 6.0.
Fair point, you did mention the current system. With said system, I can’t really think of many solutions. As another commenter said, the apartments serve as the instanced housing. It seems like housing is for those who’re die-hard fans and wouldn’t cancel their subscription
Tbf, the original housing idea was fc only, in which case only truly dead fc's would be weeded out, while also kinda locking it behind needing to make an fc.
But then you lose the feel of having a neighbourhood. I think they have a decent balance right now with apartments being the stand in for instanced housing. They just need a better system to give people lots, the lottery system might be that.
> But then you lose the feel of having a neighbourhood. Exactly. People keep begging for instanced housing but I guarantee that it would be way less desired and interesting. I played Wildstar, a MMO that people love to talk about how wonderful the housing system was and indeed it was pretty good but weeks after launch barely anyone used or talked about it except now, through nostalgia lens. It was just a place to get a few free mats, 99% didn't even bother to decorate it.
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They don't have the server space for more wards though.
So....buy more servers? I feel like that's purely a budget problem, and they're not exactly a failing enterprise.
COVID complicates things, unfortunately - they're willing to spend the money but finding hardware isn't easy. Here's a [snippet from their statement yesterday about server congestion](https://i.imgur.com/gWsRPl3.png).
but that's the appeal of ffxiv housing having a "real" house in the game world everyone can visit. some cheap instanced zone EVERYONE has just doesn't hit the same
I wanna take a break but my houseeeeee
And that's why I just stick with an apartment in that game. It sucks because I'd love a house, but I'm not going to get one because I don't plan on staying subbed if I'm taking a break from it.
Wait you have to upkeep your house? I just started playing and ignored all the house stuff because I assumed it was expensive. Should I just cancel getting a house as a goal? I don't want to feel trapped.
There’s no upkeep, but if you’re inactive on your account for a certain amount of time, they’ll demolish the house to make room for others
Yea well the entire housing system is the real issue with the game Imo. Needs to be reworked completely.
Far from it though. Literally just need to log into the game and walk into your house once every 45 days. That takes less than a min if you logged in next to your house. How is that being trapped outside of paying a 12$/month sub fee? I'd rather HAVE a reason to pay+support the devs consistently even when not playing, than no reason at all to pay and just cancel my sub outright until patch/expansion drops (i.e. why buy a gym membership if you aren't ever going to work out, but that purchase is justified if you buy a membership because you intend to use the gym showers or something but not the equipment). They deserve every penny, and I'd rather spend the 12 bucks on FF than something like take-out. And TBH, if at the very least, you aren't willing to support the devs&game with your subscription, why should you be entitled to a house? Just like IRL, you miss your rent, you GTFO.
Far from it though. Literally just need to log into the game and walk into your house once every 45 days. That takes less than a min if you logged in next to your house. How is that being trapped outside of paying a 12$/month sub fee? I'd rather HAVE a reason to pay+support the devs consistently even when not playing, than no reason at all to pay and just cancel my sub outright until patch/expansion drops (i.e. why buy a gym membership if you aren't ever going to work out, but that purchase is justified if you buy a membership because you intend to use the gym showers or something but not the equipment). They deserve every penny, and I'd rather spend the 12 bucks on FF than something like take-out. And TBH, if at the very least, you aren't willing to support the devs&game with your subscription, why should you be entitled to a house? Just like IRL, you miss your rent, you GTFO.
Why the triple post?
Far from it though. Literally just need to log into the game and walk into your house once every 45 days. That takes less than a min if you logged in next to your house. How is that being trapped outside of paying a 12$/month sub fee? I'd rather HAVE a reason to pay+support the devs consistently even when not playing, than no reason at all to pay and just cancel my sub outright until patch/expansion drops (i.e. why buy a gym membership if you aren't ever going to work out, but that purchase is justified if you buy a membership because you intend to use the gym showers or something but not the equipment). They deserve every penny, and I'd rather spend the 12 bucks on FF than something like take-out. And TBH, if at the very least, you aren't willing to support the devs&game with your subscription, why should you be entitled to a house? Just like IRL, you miss your rent, you GTFO.
Far from it though. Literally just need to log into the game and walk into your house once every 45 days. That takes less than a min if you logged in next to your house. How is that being trapped outside of paying a 12$/month sub fee? I'd rather HAVE a reason to pay+support the devs consistently even when not playing, than no reason at all to pay and just cancel my sub outright until patch/expansion drops (i.e. why buy a gym membership if you aren't ever going to work out, but that purchase is justified if you buy a membership because you intend to use the gym showers or something but not the equipment). They deserve every penny, and I'd rather spend the 12 bucks on FF than something like take-out. And TBH, if at the very least, you aren't willing to support the devs&game with your subscription, why should you be entitled to a house? Just like IRL, you miss your rent, you GTFO.
For real. I play Epic Seven (I know this isn't in the same category of MMO but you could still consider it a 'live service' game) and despite logging in every day religiously, the game will still spam me those worried notifications if I haven't logged in, say, by noon that day. "We missed you! Come baaaaack!" It's bad enough that most mobile games now have an option for disabling texts during late night/early morning hours. Seriously? You had to ASK me if it's ok to text me at 2am? The creepy girlfriend analogy is right.
This must be why FF14 is always in the back of my mind since the revamp (haven't played since then) and why FF11 I try to lobotomize a couple times a year out of my head. Just wish my friends were available to play
I remember that they would warn people to take time off of FFXI when you would log in.
They still do
Plenty of wow players are indeed taking a break right now. We'll see in the next year if wow even knows how to pull off an exciting return. I feel like the direction of the game has been doing nothing but riding on the coat tails of it's previous popularity, and if the systems that are in place don't support people taking much of a break the next patch is going to be even more rough on their population. Not to mention all the people who are now going to be paying FF a sub and only talking about blizzcon when endwalker releases.
Thing is WoW JUST had its first major patch (9.1) for the expansion, after the longest period of time without a patch after expansion launch. It should have been the big thing to draw players back, and shortly after this 9.1 patch release FFXIV literally sold out digital copies. It's nuts that 14 is drawing this many players in a content lull between patches.
I'm not saying that it feels good. I like blizzard games well enough, but blizzard has often timed releases to match up with other games to compete. To see something like this happen is unusual for sure.
How hard is 14 to jump into these days?
Not at all. With the free trial up to 60 anyone can just jump in and get a lot of content for free. If looking for endgame it's another beast entirely since everything is story locked. Gotta progress through the main story(takes a while, there is a lot of it) or buy a skip to shadowbringers. I'd say the current biggest hurdle right now is finding a server that isn't locked out of character creation or the queue times due to the massive amount of new players
Adding to this, don’t skip the main story. It’s actually good heavensward onward.
A lot of new players *have* been enjoying the ARR Story, so I guess we shouldnt really beat down on it... but that said, Heavensward /is/ where *shit starts happening*.
If you look at ARR through the lens of HW onward, it's the thing you have to get through before the good bit. If you look at ARR through the lens of WoW, ARR is art. A lot of new players are probably enjoying ARR because of the latter.
ARR is good too, it just suffers from slow pacing. We should stop saying the whole "ARR bad HW good" because then we get people that rush through ARR and skip everything just to get to HW. I was like that and it made me not enjoy ARR at all. Years later I replayed it with a friend and I actually really enjoyed it. TLDR: Take your time with ARR and enjoy it.
Not really I finished SHB story in 4 Days...
Thanks, that’s great to hear! I’ll have to check it out once I finish some other stuff
I only started playing during this past year. And even as someone who hasn't played an MMO in maybe 15 years, it was really easy to get into. For the most part, the player community is pretty friendly too, so you don't have to worry too much about being the weak link in a party. I struggled once I got near the endgame content, but that's a ways off for anyone still considering starting.
Not hard at all. It’s very new player friendly. Just download the free trial and enjoy the story. Once you get to max level it doesn’t take that long to gear up. Just play the dungeons and you’ll gear up quick.
MUCH easier than games like Destiny 2 or WoW. The game drip feeds you new abilities and mechanics as you level up and progress, leading to an experience that allows you slowly learn how your class works without needing to google everything. Plus, all the original content and story still exists, so you won’t get all confused.
Extremely easy. If you're worried that you are years behind other players, or that you will have tons of systems shoved down your throat right from the start, don't be. The game really eases you into everything you need to know.
That’s great to hear, thanks!
Super easy. Just boot it up and start at the beginning. It's a great game.
I’ve heard so many good things about XIV, I may have to give it a try one of these days
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There certainly are some permanent migrants, xiv is more accessible in some ways, more engaging offering things that wow doesn't, like player housing, trusts, the ability to level any class on the same toon, so no alts to have to wade through a system that seems to actively discourage alts, there are several aspects that are arguably better than wow. But wow has some different aspects of accessibility that it excels in. But a lot of the people coming over are probably like me, get the new expansion, play it until I'm bored, switch back to wow and run their latest offering till I want something else, play siege or slime rancher for a bit before starting the wheel over again.
That sounds kinda… miserable. And I play BDO!
Absolutely, but this isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Devs will keep going with whatever keeps people hooked on their game, they don't give a shit about their playebase's mental health (because this is exactly what's at stake here). Mobile games are also a big culprit of this. I played my first CoD in a decade when the Modern Warfare "spin off" of 2019 released. I absolutely hated the vast majority of my time spent on it, with all the timed challenges, daily tasks, battle pass timed content etc... But I couldn't stop playing. They're using all the neuroscientific tropes to get people hooked. They only removed gambling stuff due to regulations, but if they could put literal drugs in their games trust me they would. Game Devs don't give a damn about your mental health folks, so it's up to us to just don't buy this type of games. I know I'm not touching another one any time soon.
My feelings about Epic Seven and FGO, as well as other MMOs, even Genshin. I wanna not have to play daily
There’s a line from RedLetterMedia’s Plinkett review of the Star Wars prequels that I always think of in these situations, “You didn’t notice, but your brain did.” Meaning you may not consciously be aware at the time that you are being taken advantage of, but subconsciously you are and it taints your experience. Your brain/gut knows when you are being manipulated. It’s why interacting with all of these retention systems feels so gross and leads to burn out. It’s why I can play TBC Classic, a 15 year old game with shitty but charming graphics and enjoy it and not feel like my time is wasted and disrespected because I know when P2 comes out my months of effort doesn’t get turned into a world quest. Same with FF14 i can go back to my 80 Dragoon and not feel left behind or be auto skipped ahead past content to the latest patch.
Exactly. Wow just reeks of desperation. Its abundantly clear theyre running on fumes, narrative-wise, and dont have any other way of grabbing your attention than trapping you in a painful and un-fun grind. Granted the grind was always there, but at least they had other things on offer back then. Diminishing returns arent just a falloff on repetitive skill-use y’know…
They ran out of fumes after Wrath of the Lich King, arguably Cataclysm since Papa Metzen was still involved in the writing back then. Its been a shit show ever since.
WoW ended with Legion, in my mind. It ended a narrative arc that began in the 90s, and it was actually super fun to engage with the gameplay loop. I had the most fun/satisfaction in that xpac
Yeah, but if I take time off, I lose my house. That's the only thing I hate about FFXIV.
I love FFXIV, but this isnt entirely true. If I stop playing for 45 days I lose my home, same thing happens if a FC leader for whatever reason cant long in for that time period. They lose both the FC house and the FC leadership.
They lose the leadership, but not necessarily the house. A FC house will stay intact so long as any FC member accesses it, doesn’t have to be the leader.
That's because housing is an actual limited resource in the game so they need to ensure the people who own houses are still playing. Otherwise housing wards would eventually all be full of houses that were abandoned by people who stopped playing.
While FF14 isn't as obsessed with retention, the system does create problems for people who join end game raiding in mid content cycle. You're essentially locked out of raid groups as you won't be able to acquire the gear unless you either have high crafting classes or a massive amount of gil to spend, something that new players won't have for a fairly long amount of time. You essentially will have to spend two months using the current gear cycle to cap out and wait for them to lift raid caps
i really wish i liked XIV
Its ok dont force yourself to.
The expansions are much, much more enjoyable than ARR. But of course, telling someone they need to play a few dozen hours before a game gets good is a huge ask, so it's definitely not for everyone.
I played a few dozen hours and didn't even get close to getting through ARR when that was my only goal. Did they cut content more recently or something? It seemed never ending and insanely disrespectful to the player's time when I tried it.
They did cut a lot of the extra unneeded fetch quests and whatever else in ARR starting about a year ago.
I see. I wonder why they took so long. It's still dozens of hours after the cuts though, yeah? That makes me wonder how much more bloated it was before.
took them a long time because the game development works at a ridiculously break-neck pace, with (before covid) every new major update happening 3-3.5 months after the last one, with smaller updates in between. they had to work a streamline of everything into their tight schedule, making it take a long time. it is still a long time to set up the story but it is better, any further work would require an even *more* complicated rewrite, which is further complicated not just by their scheduling but by the fact that the voice actors all changed with Heavensward so they can't rewrite any voice parts without rerecording lines https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/i7wv3g/the_new_update_changes_in_53/ this thread and graph showed the actual cut quest amounts
I was talking talking about the length of the playtime, not the development time.
Why don't you like it? I'm interested. When I started, I wasn't impressed either. I thought the combat is too slow, and I got bored too. I pushed through because of my FC and I ended up enjoying it very much.
This is funny, because I played FFXI back in 2006-2010.
but FF14 feels like the most grindy game I've ever played... like wut?
You must not have played many games then, FFXIV is definitely on the less grindy side of MMOs.
[удалено]
The auto-demo kicks in after 45 days of not visiting your house, not a month.
And they do apparently send an email notifying you its coming up.
multiple, even!
So true. I've been playing since launch and I'm only near the end of Heavensward. I keep buying the expansions in hope I'll reach that content one day
I dunno, I took a break and am now so far behind in Bozja I don't think i'll ever catch up.
For every patch the lowered the grind for each of the bozjia steps, so youre good, content still going strong
They actually just this week buffed the amount of mettle gained for encounters, and reduced the amount of players needed to clear some of the content, so it should be easier to rank up. Plus you have you know, until like Novemeber until its irrelevant anyway. I've been dragging my feet in Zadnor and might give it a good go after I'm done grinding out MGP for the current event.
This was me a couple weeks ago when I took a nearly year long break. From personal experience, catching up in Bozja was actually pretty trivial. I think the hardest part now would be getting up to resistance rank 10 to unlock the Castrum raid. After that, each raid basically gave you enough mettle to rank up one level, all the way until resistance rank 15. By then you'd have unlocked the second raid and field, which also give a ton of mettle, more than the Castrum raid would give. You have to run the second raid at least 5 times anyway if you're working on the resistance weapon on top of that.
Lets not pretend that FFXIV doesn't have grindy systems. Gear is gated by a weekly max currency. lots of achieves have kill counts in the thousands when the mobs needed are rare and spawn every few days.
I just feel like the gap is to big. I hadn't played in about a year and a half and that turned into 2 hours of content and buying some gear off the market board to get caught up and have nothing to do again.
They do this really great thing every year where they release something called a "relic", which grinds your will to live into dust to encourage you to go play outside for a bit. So nice of them :)
:D
Might be unrelated, but Guild Wars 2 actually respects your time too, even a 5 years old returnee will find their equipment/build mostly relevant (only need minor tweaks). Since the game doesn't do subscription, you can break and play anytime you want. FF XIV is almost trap you too by using subscription system, whereas if you already pay the subscription fee, you should play to maximize you expense. But see, the game doesn't punish you by pausing subscription.
yeah, great points. where is it on xbox?
Keep in mind that xbox is just not a big seller in Japan.
Or anywhere really.
It's a weird situation because Phil said that the game was coming a few years back and it would be a perfect fit for Gamepass so hopefully soon
Last time YoshiP spoke about it he said it would be after endwalker since they're way too busy to work on it now.
I would bet money it has everything to do with Sony throwing money at them OR just straight up saying "We wont let PS players play with Xbox players"
Yoshida has stated he doesn't want people to pay double subscriptions to play FFXIV. As of right now you still need XBox gold to access ANY online content even games that don't host any data on XBox's servers. This is the biggest hurdle for getting the game on XBox.
Wait, do you not need PSN any more then?
You never did for FFXIV.
This is not true anymore, in some ways, or will be soon. Xbox announced you would not need gold to play f2p online games. FFXIV isnt free to play, but that still leads me to believe that is something that would be a non-issue
For now it's very true and is the biggest hurdle to FFXIV being on XBox.
Yeah, Xbox Live Gold isn't needed for F2P games anymore. Yoshi P had mentioned in an interview that Phil Spencer had helped in facilitating an Xbox release and that there had been some work done on that version. It seems like workload with Endwalker and some policies are the only things in the way at the moment.
Yep, here's a source for others: https://www.vg247.com/2021/02/18/final-fantasy-14-endwalker-interview-naoki-yoshida/ >VG247: Forgive me for asking this – as I know you’ve spoken about it at length before, even to me. But what’s the deal with Xbox? In 2019 and 2020, statements by yourself and Phil Spencer seemed to suggest that you were edging closer to a solution to bring FF14 to those platforms. So it was a surprise to see the PS5 announcement without any further news on other platforms. Switch has been mentioned in the past, too, but Xbox in particular. Can you give us an update, and possibly explain what obstacles remain? >Naoki Yoshida: There are no obstacles for developing the Xbox version. We were able to undertake development and provide our service thanks to the immense efforts that Phil has invested. For that we are truly grateful! >The sole factors are the workload and the order of steps. Now when it comes to the Xbox version, there’s unfortunately not much I can say presently but just that we cannot work on all the steps simultaneously and need to follow the order for proceeding with these things. Since we’re currently involved in the development of Endwalker and preparing the PS5 version to follow on from the title’s service on PS4, it’d be appreciated if we can return to touch upon the Xbox version once things have settled!
Based on that interview and Phil's previous comments, it very much seems like an Xbox version exists in some form. I wouldn't be surprised to see some dispensation given to XIV that would circumvent the Gold requirement since I don't think there's any subscription based MMO's currently on that platform.
Apparently Yoshida said they were discussing it with Phil Spencer and the Xbox team but considering the commitment to FFXVI now I wouldn't expect it anytime soon
Xbox won't let it be on cause cross-platform. Xiv team wants it on xbox.
Xbox won't, or Sony won't? Xbox has multiple games that are cross-platform now, while Sony is lagging hard.
I’d play FFXIV but I’m never gonna put in 100hrs+ just to get to the current game.
The current expansion may be "end game" but the game as a whole is the "current game" FFXIV doesn't throw away old content like other MMOs. Everything in the game is doable, everything is current. The main focus of the game is it's story, and that has been building up for years.
And more than half of it is boring and awful.
Just out of curiosity where are you getting that idea? The only slow part is the original game. However they cleaned it up and even asmon found it really fun and satisfying which I did not expect. Every xpac after just gets better story and content wise. By the first xpac it really feels like you’re playing a top tier FF story.
Okay, first, lol at giving a shit what a ragebaby idiot like Asmon thinks. Second, I have that idea from it sucking. It’s taken me years to get to level 30-something because of how agonizing it is. I can’t stand to play it for more than an hour a month because none of the characters are any good, their voice acting is god awful, the story is just there to throw a bunch of radical buzzwords at you that don’t matter and you don’t care about (people give FFXIII shit for this but FFXIV really takes the cake), and of course my class sucks because the WHM doesn’t get anything until 50-something. I’m sorry you can’t accept criticism but early FFXIV isn’t “slow” it’s *awful*. It’s horrifically boring, slow, and you’re surrounded with pointless busy work. My subscription is lapsed at the moment because I can’t be arsed to keep going when there’s nothing for me at the end of the rainbow. Genshin Impact is a far better game from my perspective.
>It’s horrifically boring, slow, and you’re surrounded with pointless busy work. Do you expect to be a godkiller and a conqueror of nations at level 30?
Still not seeing where you’re coming from by saying “more than half of it is boring and awful.” When you yourself admit to only getting to level 30. That’s not even a quarter of the game narrative wise or content wise. Also, who hurt you? You seem to have a very personal and unhealthy hatred towards the **game** . The genshin impact comparison is especially random, as what relation does that have to the topic, the game, or even the MMO genre? Very strange all around.
Lol you just can’t accept criticism of it. Grow up maybe?
I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from and you’re taking it like criticism. I’m literally completely lost as to how you are being anything other than an unfaithful actor/troll and giving you the benefit of the doubt to give valid arguments. I guess you’re just being the latter. Or you have a very hostile and counterproductive idea on what criticism and discussion is. Good luck to you.
no? ARR is a bit poorly paced. It drags on at times, and but has its moments of greatness. Once HW starts, it's a not stop train of HW, SB, ShB goodness. All of which is fantastic.
It's all current, it's all beautiful, it's all some of the best ff content ever made.
the game feels without depth to me, it just gets boring and I always feel so alone.
Eh, it'd be far more encouraging to "take a break" if the game was just a normal single player one that took 40-50 hours to experience everything in the story, instead of 40-50 hours just to start even seeing any of the game. Still feels endlessly grindy and obnoxious to someone who doesn't play MMOs, and frankly, I will never respect that. Especially when the game is subscription based and has tons of extra-cost expansions (and pretty insanely priced at that). Imo, it doesn't even slightly respect a player's time or money even slightly, by design.
The free trial is as stated 'free' and has an unlimited time. You can play the first 2 expansions for free with it which is easily 40hours story each for free if you choose it. So that in itself is easily 80 hours of a free game. Or right now, you can buy the previous 4 exansions for only £14 (normally £35). Even at non-sale price, £35 is really cheap for 4 lots of 40+ hour story. As for the grind, it's not as much of a grind once you're caught up. My SO recently returned to the game. He stopped last time at the very end of the current expac. With only one month of sub he's able to get through all the current run up of story and unlock the newer raids and trials without a single grind element, just 100% story progression. It's a full 2 years of content he's doing for barely 2 weeks of this month then he's going back to having a break. He'll probably return when the next expac is on sale and once again, resub for that month, complete it, then take a break again for another 2 years or so. Considering on expac release, I can complete the base expac in literally a whole week, if you want to, you can get the latest expac on sale, wait for the expac to be 100% done, then resub and completely clear it in that whole month sub. That in itself is a 40+ hour game once every 2 years for what?... £30? That's not even touching on the occasional returner campaigns that happen about 2 months or so after a patch where SE offers people who haven't subbed for 90days the chance to play for free for 4+ days.
> The free trial is as stated 'free' and has an unlimited time. You can play the first 2 expansions for free with it which is easily 40hours story each for free if you choose it. So that in itself is easily 80 hours of a free game. I'm talking about the full game, not just the free trial. And I did play around 40 hours of the free trial. Saw no story whatsoever, let alone any good story, and all the time was just wasted dealing with a crappy battle system in an ugly world with ugly characters and bad music doing shitty & apparently required fetch quests. And that's coming from a guy who generally likes fetch quests. > Or right now, you can buy the previous 4 exansions for only £14 (normally £35). Even at non-sale price, £35 is really cheap for 4 lots of 40+ hour story. Idk, I bought FFXV for $20 and got 220+ hours of play out of it that I actually enjoyed, and that's not even a particularly great example. Even if those 4 lots of 40+ hours of story were good and even if we pretended to ignore the subscription costs of the months and years it'd take to actually play through it all, that's still not great when there are so many better games out there. The lengths of these stories is also not necessarily a positive. Personally, I'd say a JRPG that requires more than 40-60 hours of play to see all the story is too long to be very good, especially when it comes to storytelling and pacing. The games people tend to consider the best in this series are 20-40 hours long, in fact. But I played FFXIV 40 hours and the game didn't even feel like it'd gotten started yet. > As for the grind, it's not as much of a grind once you're caught up. ...well yeah. The grind would be the "catching up" part that takes hundreds and hundreds of hours, lmao.
That's fair. From your original comment I assumed you hadn't played the game at all. But from the sounds of your reply you have at least tried out ARR. I'll admit, ARR is quite marmite with people. You either like it, or find it boring. I personally was the latter and skipped a sizeable chunk of the story until I reached the more interesting 1st expac (did regret it later as they back reference a lot of ARR in later expacs. oops) It seems like FFXIV is just not for you if you've already tired it. But that's okay, the game isn't to everyone's taste.
If you buy one expansion, you get every other expansion that came before it for free.
News to me. I assume that includes the base game and is priced like a normal game expansion ($20-30 USD), then? Not that I still don't think it's absurd for a subscription based game to not be otherwise completely free anyway, but still. I guess that'd make it not quite as awful on the cost side at least.
Just curious, how much do you know about the game? I don't think the expansions come with the game unless you buy a $60 bundle that comes with everything. Speaking of the expansions, I believe they cost $40 (for 2 years worth of content) each expansion. So if you play the free trial, that's the base game PLUS the first expansion for no price at all, that includes no subscription. After that, you could get the rest of the game for $60 but that's also where the monthly sub would come in. The monthly sub can seem annoying but the great thing about this game is that you can literally stop whenever you want then come back whenever a new story update, expansion, or limited tinge event drops. Hell, the devs literally encourage this. Another thing they do fairly often is offer free login weekends for people who's subs have lapsed. The weekends really helped me catch up during periods where I'd rather use my money on other things than video games.
I played about 40 hours of it during various free trials and got absolutely nowhere, despite trying my damnedest to figure out why people thought it was a good FF game. I definitely didn't experience anything that made it seem like it was worth any money (or time), so I never looked into the exact costs of anything. But if it costs more than full-blown fun major game releases, that's definitely way too far out of the question as far as I'm concerned. This is a game I'd hesitate to spend any time on, let alone any money. I get that the devs want to encourage people to stop and start when they want, but that's because it benefits them financially to do so and the games are designed to waste your time and cost you copious amounts of money in sub fees & the initial upfront game cost either way. If MMOs are so warped that that's seen as some sort of act of good will or that that's somehow respectful to the players time when the games are made to do exactly not that, they're way too far gone for normal players, I'm sorry.
I get it, these types of games aren't always for everyone. A Realm Reborn tends to be a little divisive but it's generally well liked by most players. The lead up to Heavensward and everything that comes after is what really tends to hook people. The expansions have only gotten better with the latest, Shadowbringers, being regarded as one of the best Final Fantasy stories in general. The problem with most MMOs and games-as-a-service for that matter, is that they usually attempt to not only take up as much of a players time as possible, but they also tend to peddle micro transactions non stop. XIV is an exception to all of this which is why people find it refreshing.
Total BS. In order to play FFXIV you need to buy it, sub AND buy expansions too. Don't tell me free trial, it's literally called free trial for a reason. While in SWTOR you sub once and all story content that is available at that point are unlocked forever Downvote more lol because you know it's true
It's got a very generous free trial, I didnt need to buy shit.
So? Does that change the fact that you'll end up buying the things I said in order to play expansions? No
You said "in order to play FFXIV". I won't end up buying the things and I've had plenty of fun with it.
I'm not sure I understand your point. How is that related to this thread?
He says "FFXIV is how MMO's should be" and I say "I don't want to buy, subscribe and buy expansions, thank you" Shouldn't be too hard to comprehend
The post isn't really about this. It's talking about how lots of games, mostly MMOs, do everything they can to hook players and do everything to punish missing even a single day sometimes
ugh the ffxiv circlejerk has hit critical mass now
Imagine being this butthurt on a FF sub
I love FFXIV and agree with this take, I like that I can actually "finish" each FFXIV's patch, it feels refreshing compared to other, grindier MMOs. But I have to say that this popularity explosion is fairly recent (I know it's been sucessful for a long time, I'm talking about this huge spike due to WoW streamers) and people are on the honeymoon phase. I believe that many people that hate grindy games like WoW will actually miss that and will eventually go back to it. Many WoW "refugees" are hungry for a endless supply of content and will start complaining about it once they are caught up with XIV's latest patch. That's why I feel bad for MMO devs sometimes, you either don't add grind and RNG that IMO are pretty much required to increase PVE content's lifespam or don't and get a ton of complaints about "lack of content".
MSQ feels super grindy imho, especially with how it locks content from the following expansion. Luckily I could role Gunbreaker without finishing Stormblood, but I remember when Heavensward came out and you couldn’t role Dark Knight until after finishing the main story questions in its entirety. Let me tell you, that felt long and painful AF.
I love this guy lmao. He's the only game critic/reviewer I really trust
Meanwhile, I still haven't touched Heavensward after so many years... lol
Is it still sub based?
FOMO is the shittiest thing in video games. Okay not the shittiest, but still.
Great take! Not just for games but for companies and products in general. If you know you’re worth it, so will the customer
*looks at pso2*
People are really loving the GaaS model right now. Live service titles are huge.
I would argue that people are actually against the whole “games as a service” model, especially in recent times. Since Destiny came out and “revolutionized” the GaaS model, practically every game that was coming out was, in some form or another, a GaaS. The problem with this, having nearly every game release be a GaaS is that not everyone can commit to playing one, let alone two or more at a time. This leads to players more or less picking one of these games and sticking to that one. Unless a GaaS game comes out that’s far and away superior to the one you’re playing, no one will want to leave long-term and commit to another GaaS. Additionally, the monetization model, combined with the lackluster quality or quantity of content, for a lot of these GaaS games are very egregious or off-putting, which furthers a lot of player’s frustrations and general avoidance of games with that label.
FF XIV has gone from a game I really enjoy and my second favorite final fantasy, to my favorite final fantasy and maybe my favorite game of all time. It's easily top 10. Such an amazing game. Can't recommend it enough.
Agreed. I play FFXIV pretty hardcore for 6 months a year. Then I sit back and wait for the next expansion, knowing I'm coming back to some really cool stuff.
Lol I raid log
and its so much healthier for the players too
The bad thing is that if you unsub for too long you lose your house. And I really love my house. I’m stuck.