Board 8 > Final Fantasy XIV Complete on sale for $48

(+) Yeah! (+)

Base game and every single expansion. Don't miss out on the best Final Fantasy story!

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1494003224109469696

i've been intrigued by this game quite a bit but then i watch some footage and it just seems like way too much to figure out

It's not as complicated as it looks

Not Dave posted...

i've been intrigued by this game quite a bit but then i watch some footage and it just seems like way too much to figure out

It's not even remotely as complicated as it looks like from afar, and I say this as someone who used that excuse for a long time. Once you get invested the only thing that should give you trouble is figuring out how you want to customize your UI. All the normal difficulty progression content is also incredibly forgiving. There is no story content locked behind high difficulty content, other than maybe some alternate forms for raid bosses of old FF characters, and that's just visual stuff.

I had absolutely no MMO experience going into it and was doing some absolutely embarrasing stuff all the way up until the end of the base game, but it ever actually hindered my profession in the slightest.

If you really want to play it safe, just play as a DPS job. Other than affecting how long a dungeon or boss takes to beat, you won't have any actual responsibility until you hit level 60!

ah that's encouraging

is it fine to play with a controller or do you need mouse + keyboard? I don't have a PC so wouldn't be taking advantage of this sale but it's not too expensive on the playstation store

Not Dave posted...

ah that's encouraging

is it fine to play with a controller or do you need mouse + keyboard? I don't have a PC so wouldn't be taking advantage of this sale but it's not too expensive on the playstation store

i have been using controller and have a great experience now - but it's probably worth watching a controller setup video, because the games doesn't tell you shit about how deep the settings and options run and about some really key tips for targeting on controller

i personally wouldn't play on a console, but i know people who do that say it's excellent

the game isn't complicated, especially if you only care about the main story, or have ever played an mmo before. the game does have a lot of random subsystems, but those can be safely ignored. i think they're left in to take advantage of completionists. remember, the game doesn't cost 48 dollars- it costs 48 dollars plus 13 dollars a month

people are kind of exaggerating when they say it's the best final fantasy story. it's certainly special, mostly because it's the longest and the worldbuilding is (almost entirely) consistent throughout. i do think the first hundred or so hours of the game are just an extended hazing ritual, and the dialogue/direction never exactly becomes snappy.

the real enjoyment comes from playing beyond that, when you're seeing characters written consistently, even after hundreds of hours of play. i'd compare it to the enjoyment of a beloved, long-running TV series like star trek: tng

actually, that comparison works especially well, because the first 2 seasons of tng were garbo

It took me a long time to get comfortable with the PS5 controller; If I had a good PC I'd definitely go for that.

It's so much to slog through at first though. ARR just sucks.

It bears mentioning also that yes, it is an MMO, and so there's just stuff about it I'm never going to like. You have to play a certain way and you have to play in a party, which even though the developers have gone through steps to be as painless and non-toxic as possible, it still isn't my preferred experience.

Game is very good with controller but I would def spend some time customizing your layout and learning the shortcuts. I changed a lot of stuff multiple times over the course of a few hundred hours before settling. Once you decide to go leveling new jobs (or more specifically new roles), you'll want to have different UI layout to swap to depending on whether your playing DPS, Tank, or Healer, but that's endgame stuff and by that time you'll already be intamitely comfortable with everything and it will be second nature.

I do still have a Bluetooth keyboard for emergencies, which is usually if someone is asking questions I can answer. This is absolutely not necessary though, a huge portion of the community plays on console and doesn't type. All you need to be equipped with is the "o/" greeting when entering content and a good ol' "TYFP!" when leaving in your Playstation keyboard autofill and you're good to go, lol.

yeah tbh I was not comfortable with not being able to communicate and just plugged my wireless keyboard's receiver into the ps4 and found that worked so i use that but you can certainly get by without

Also I don't think calling it the best FF story is an exaggeration. I also don't think it's has a ton of competition on that front though!

I do genuinely adore the story of this game once you get past ARR, primarily once you hit Shadowbringers and beyond. To clarify I do think the characters shine more than the actual story, so if you want to get technical I think it has the best CHARACTERS of any Final Fantasy game.

I cried a whole lot playing this, and I certainly haven't done that for any other FF!

Now if you want to get a lot less subjective, I think you'd have to be a lunatic to say this doesn't have the best FF soundtrack.

Steiner posted...

yeah tbh I was not comfortable with not being able to communicate and just plugged my wireless keyboard's receiver into the ps4 and found that worked so i use that but you can certainly get by without

I didn't care when I was new, but I was completely unable to handle actually knowing stuff when people were asking for help and having to navigate through the digital key lard for 3 minutes to tell them what order to kill King Moogle Mog's Minions in or things of that ilk.

To point something else out that really only relates to people who know MMOs but not XIV: If you decide to take a break and unsubscribe, the game does not punish you. In games like WoW if you stop playing for a couple weeks your fucked. Here you could take a break for months, or unsubcribe after finishing the story until the next story latch drops, and there's really no negative. It's even encouraged by the director.

The only thing of note is that if you own a house in the game and are unsubcribe for...I forget the exact amount, 3 months? You lose your house. I have 1500 hours in this game and no house to show for it anyways, so not something I would put much worry into either.

Buying this is a bad idea if you haven't played the game - doing the free trial first is ideal, since it gives you a huge portion of the game with no subscription fee.

And yeah the game's way less complicated than it looks in videos.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Buying this is a bad idea if you haven't played the game - doing the free trial first is ideal, since it gives you a huge portion of the game with no subscription fee.

Still temporarily offline sadly.