Board 8 > FFXIV Topic Part 4 -- In Estinien We Trust

(+) Yeah! (+)

Did my last Prae run of the tomestone event. I will miss you, cutscenes.

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The Mana Sword posted...

Did my last Prae run of the tomestone event. I will miss you, cutscenes.

Such devastation. This was not my intention!

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Lightning Strikes posted...

I finished the Stormblood patches last night! Very excited to get to Shadowbringers, the hype is the reason I got into FFXIV in the first place. Ill fo some detailed opinions about my time so far and the expansions in a bit.

I mean I knew Shadowbringers was supposed to be the shit even before I was paying attention, lol. It's a phenomenon and the drive towards it seems like a big deal for a lot of people.

Maybe it was the big E3 stageshow trailer?

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The large scale leves holy shit.

Going from level 56 to 63 in 10 seconds.

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I got WHM to 80 right before maintenance! WHM/Healing is really cool, glad I gave it a shot. Still need to do the SHB role quests and get a good glamour. I think I might hold off on levelling a tank and got for a more easy physical DPS, like SAM.

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We have 24 minutes left we can totally make it work, queue for Alliance you cowaaaaaaaards

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15 min Sycrus yeeeet

Everyone in chat asking why we don't always do it that fast. The message to logout showed up literally the second Xande pulled lol.

GANON1025 posted...

I got WHM to 80 right before maintenance! WHM/Healing is really cool, glad I gave it a shot. Still need to do the SHB role quests and get a good glamour. I think I might hold off on levelling a tank and got for a more easy physical DPS, like SAM.

As someone LEVELING Tank it indeed is pretty stressful and hasn't really stopped. Basically every first run through any dungeon is kind of scary. It's honestly fine one SUBSEQUENT runs, but that first time, oof.

So, like people might give advice like "just relax, tanking is only as stressful as you want it to be, just throw up the wave and everything will be all good"

LIES

CONSTANT VIGILANCE

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Exactly. It's not like I have every dungeon memorized, and even the ones I do know are from DPS/Healer perspective. So like, I have no idea when or what tankbusters are coming.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

15 min Sycrus yeeeet

Everyone in chat asking why we don't always do it that fast. The message to logout showed up literally the second Xande pulled lol.

...how long does syrcus tower usually take groups you're in because that sounds average to me

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Doing your first run through the game as DPS was easytown and I never actually learned the layouts.

Before trying both I had no idea why tanking was supposedly harder then healing, but it's clear as day now.


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Skip Curtain Call. People need to commit

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

...how long does syrcus tower usually take groups you're in because that sounds average to me

I mean it's usually like 17, it's not like there's variance on Sycrus but when you're trying to beat maintenance it's suddenly another layer of rush.

I HAVE been in a run that wiped on Amon before.

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And no, healer is harder than tank. Especially on controller.

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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Skip Curtain Call. People need to commit

I've only had that happen once so far, was likely faster than this but I wasn't actually timing it then.

Also apparently not everyone has as much faith, since we had 4 people quit as soon as Sycrus loaded up that I had to request fill ins for.

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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

And no, healer is harder than tank. Especially on controller.

Controller vs MK does seem like a decive factor here.

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I found Healing pretty easy on a controller

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I did have some trouble, but I think it was more about my layout. I need to move the party bar to the center left of the screen just like I do the Enmity lists for tank.

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GANON1025 posted...

Exactly. It's not like I have every dungeon memorized, and even the ones I do know are from DPS/Healer perspective. So like, I have no idea when or what tankbusters are coming.

TBs don't really matter in dungeons

The real bosses in dungeons are the trash!

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Mobs are much scarier than bosses. I haven't died to a boss as a Tank yet!

Although so far I think a LOT of this comes down to ARR dungeon design, especially the later ones. All the Heavensward and Stormblood content I've rouletted into so far has been a much easier time.

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Tank is absolutely the easiest role at every level of play on both Keyboard/Mouse and Controller.

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I dunno how that could be possible with Red Mage existing.

I don't even need two full hotbars!

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KamikazePotato posted...

Tank is absolutely the easiest role at every level of play on both Keyboard/Mouse and Controller.

far be it from me to malign my own main, and Ive never played a tank before, but casting fire 4 is pretty easy

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It's easy on paper, but damn is that a monster to play well and optimized in Savages.

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Tank is the role with the highest skill floor but the lowest skill ceiling - there's a bunch you have to learn right at the start, but once you know it all it's extremely easy to execute.

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https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/6526ce95a595e8a557b55736f85f19687dc11883/#main_quest

Melee changes listed.

Uhhhh...so patch so already out, that's many hours early, right? Shame I won't be able to play until after work tomorrow.

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Nah all of the servers are still down

It might come up a little early, but it's not gonna be like three hours early

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Ah. Well, PS5 version is up at least! Just finished downloading, has a nice screen splash now.

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No Tidus card for me again :(

Never gonna get this stupid thing

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Okay, so first here are my overall Stormblood thoughts:

The main expansion is, put bluntly, seriously underrated. Its as good as Heavensward. The patches are not as good because despite being the shortest post-game it feels like the longest, and it lacks the explosive moments of the 2.x and 3.x storylines. The way the early patches develop one key character is a little contrived, but I found that storylines conclusion to be deeply sad so it worked out in the end. I think being sandwiched between the post-Heavensward storyline and Shadowbringers has unreasonably affected Stormbloods reputation.

The improvements Stormblood makes to the solo duty design (I went from ugh a solo duty to seeing them as highlights), trials (same), and dungeons cant be overstated. Its much more fun to play through with more big moments of spectacle as a result. It also benefits a lot from dropping the PS3, and marks the point where FFXIV goes from looking good for a 2013 MMO to just being a good looking video game. That said it does produce a weird effect where the base character models look much worse than everything else.

The story doesnt quite measure up to Heavensward and it is clearly two expansions put into one, but its pretty compelling most of the way through, it slows down in the middle 30% but the first 30% and last 40% are great. I think it deals with some of the most interesting and surprising themes and topics - theres colonialism, irregular militaries, chemical weapons, and it largely doesnt drop the ball (except for one particular bit involving refugees in 4.1 which just kind of gets shuffled to the side) which is impressive. I also think they weave the themes into the experience nicely, eg early on you hear the Garlean anthem for the territories, and you might think its weird that youre hearing the instrumental version of this in the resistance camps. Then you get to the end of the main expansion and they all sing the real Ala Mhigan anthem, then you realise that the Empire had taken the tune and replaced the lyrics with its own propaganda. Thats good stuff.

...Also Zenos is fine. Hes fine!

tl;dr: Stormblood is good, actually.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Uhhhh...so patch so already out, that's many hours early, right? Shame I won't be able to play until after work tomorrow.

Patches always come out before the maintenance is over to give people time to download them.

played through the new 24 man as the patch opened this morning

It was fun, but Orbonne it is not. We didn't wipe a single time the whole way! Our alliance was the only one to survive the nier hacking minigame section (???????), but we had a couple RDMs so it was all fine and we bounced back.

we killed the first boss as he used a knockback you're supposed to get knocked into a cube for, and the instant he died the cubes disappeared. But he still knocked us back so I died. RUDE.
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Lightning Strikes posted...

I think being sandwiched between the post-Heavensward storyline and Shadowbringers has unreasonably affected Stormbloods reputation.

Nah, it gained its reputation before Shadowbringers was even announced. It was basically universally considered "not as good as Heavensward" at release and then only went downhill as the honeymoon period wore off and the patches came out. I know people who quit playing the game because of it lol

And yeah, they improved the gameplay and fight design. But uh...they copy and paste the same game structure every expansion. They better get better at game design! I'm not sure how much credit I give Stormblood on that compared to the dev team itself doing their thing.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Nah, it gained its reputation before Shadowbringers was even announced. It was basically universally considered "not as good as Heavensward" at release and then only went downhill as the honeymoon period wore off and the patches came out. I know people who quit playing the game because of it lol

And yeah, they improved the gameplay and fight design. But uh...they copy and paste the same game structure every expansion. They better get better at game design! I'm not sure how much credit I give Stormblood on that compared to the dev team itself doing their thing.

You say that, and I agree with you in theory, but on the other hand, WoW exists and the game design there definitely did not improve with each expansion! I think we all thought it would then Cataclysm (or to be more precise, post-launch Cataclysm) happened.

However, I do think there is a better overall vision for the dungeons and trials and how to fit them into the expansion, for instance compare the first HW dungeon to the first SB dungeon. I also was surprised by how much better the trial design was, while there was an upward trend for these ones there was a much bigger rise in quality imo, especially for the post-game trials. So Ill give SB that, it does feel like there was a bit of a rethink on how duties were being done.

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Oh man the PS5 trophy list wants 8000 collectables gathered and 5000 crafted, and the FATE count is up to 3000 (compared to PS3/4 requiring 1000 for the plat which is still a lot).

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There are still people that care about trophies xd

5.5 MSQ beated. It was alright. Bit short, but I know there's a second part soon.

Paglth'an is a decent dungeon. Bosses aren't too tough, and the second one is sort of unique. There are segments at the end that basically force a loss of Enochian, though, which drives me crazy.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

However, I do think there is a better overall vision for the dungeons and trials and how to fit them into the expansion, for instance compare the first HW dungeon to the first SB dungeon. I also was surprised by how much better the trial design was, while there was an upward trend for these ones there was a much bigger rise in quality imo, especially for the post-game trials. So Ill give SB that, it does feel like there was a bit of a rethink on how duties were being done.

I think you're exaggerating the jump in trial quality but come to think of it that's probably due to me going through this stuff as it was current and running it over and over. Also, I really don't think you can judge trials based solely on the normal mode. Heavensward's trials for the most part all have solid to great extremes, but the normal modes...well. For example, Thordan EX is one of the best fights in the entire game, and normal mode is just a joke. Ditto for Nidhogg although the normal mode did get to be a noob crusher for a time. What Stormblood did well was up the cinematic aspect and mechanical gimmicks to make even the normal fights feels unique, even when it resulted in bad gimmicks (yeah I'm looking at you Byakko and Lakshmi).

So basically, what Stormblood is doing is largely making moderate improvements in the visuals and atmosphere while going through the motions mechanically. This applies to the dungeons (except a few standouts like Bardham's Mettle), and for the trials it's weird because they end up improving the normal modes at the expense of the extremes. I think they've hit a much better balance with that in Shadowbringers and they accomplished it largely by ditching the dumb gimmicks.

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I am going to agree that, at least in normal mode, the jump in Trial quality for Stormblood is pretty extreme. Stormblood Trials are still the ones I like seeing come up the most, potentially even over Shadowbringers. It's Stormblood's strongest content outside of Alliance.

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Yeah I also have to agree the Stormblood normal trials are waaaay better than anything before them.

Well I'll easily admit the stormblood normal modes hold up better but I encourage people to get into the current extreme trials before they're no longer relevant in another few months so that you too can one day complain about how things were back in the day!

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I still I don't know how I duty findered into Extreme Garuda right out of ARR with no idea what it was just because I had a quest for it, and somehow we managed to do it in 10 minutes.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Well I'll easily admit the stormblood normal modes hold up better but I encourage people to get into the current extreme trials before they're no longer relevant in another few months so that you too can one day complain about how things were back in the day!

I've played them all since the original and the Extreme Trials really were not that much better back then either.

They're not as much of a straight upgrade as the normal trials, though.

All the UI button prompts are white now and it's scarey.

*turns a corner*

*game drops to 15 FPS as over 100 people who are standing in one spot around an NPC come into view*

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Nier tier 3 beated

X_Dante_X posted...

played through the new 24 man as the patch opened this morning

It was fun, but Orbonne it is not. We didn't wipe a single time the whole way! Our alliance was the only one to survive the nier hacking minigame section (???????), but we had a couple RDMs so it was all fine and we bounced back.

we killed the first boss as he used a knockback you're supposed to get knocked into a cube for, and the instant he died the cubes disappeared. But he still knocked us back so I died. RUDE.

Not the best, but definitely a step up from Puppet's Bunker, and probably better than Copied Factory too. The 3rd and 4th bosses are quite good, even if they do throw a lot at you the first time.

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Beat the new dungeon before sleeping (...slightly after dawn)

Pretty good, though we'll see how that impression survives a week or two of expert roulette...!

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"You look and ilm taller and twice as rugged"

lol

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Maybe a dumb question... how do I get iLevel 490 gear? I didn't realize my gear was so under-leveled that I can't even finish the MSQ....

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If you're just getting the basic non HQ version you can probably just nab it off the marketboard in a pinch.

See which of your items are lowest and replace those in order until you hit what you need. Typically it's old rings and bracelets and shit.

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I have like, no money (700k), and even if I did there's no Exarchic gear being sold for my job.

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Do some roulettes, buy previous tomestone gear, which is 490.

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