#a lot more than when i was just doing it for trial roulette/normal raid roulette

[ostentenacity]

one of my favorite things to do in ffxiv of late is what my friends and i call "favorites roulette", which is that we go around and nominate 1-2 boss fights each that we like doing (up to a max of 5 because duty finder limitations), then queue up for all of them and see what we get. we only pick from normal trials and raids so it's always an 8-player story-difficulty fight, and due to personal preference we usually end up at level 80 or 90 (though there are sometimes a few 70s in there, and maybe a final steps of faith every now and again). the first time we did it, it was just for shits and giggles because we were bored, but now even though i prefer harder fights in general, Favorites Roulette is one of my favorite parts of the game. 10/10 would recommend.

[xenodile]

Hi, a question for ffixv. By looking at your work, i have been very intrigued and excited to play the game, but the last rpg game i played was disco elysium and before that WOW3. And i got very into the games. But im npt very good at socializing in games. In your experience, can one play/enjoy the game if you play it solo, or its essential to make connections/friends to get the experience? For a person who loves more dialogue and lore, how good is the normal game compared to possibly grinding? Is there any advice you would give for a very noob mmorpg player?

If you're just looking for the immersive narrative experience, then you can absolutely treat FFXIV like a single player JRPG, especially with recent patches adding more NPC party members to do MSQ dungeons with. For the encounters that require other players, the automated matchmaking system known as the Duty Finder will group you up with others without needing you to go looking for them.

More advanced end game content, such as relic weapons, Savage raids, Extreme trials, and deep dungeons, on the other hand, do require a modicum of interaction with others to be able to complete, but none of that is required and makes up like 10% of the game's total content.

As for grinding, if you're just looking at the MSQ, there practically is none. The main story quests give more than enough experience to take multiple jobs to level cap, so you can very easily stick with one job and take it through the whole campaign with no need to level up between quests. If you wanna try out other jobs however, you will need to level them by doing dungeons, daily quests, duty finder roulettes, and other activities because just killing enemies in the overworld is disgustingly ineffective.

My best piece of advice for someone new to an MMO is don't try to do everything correctly the first time. MMORPGs tend to have a LOT going on at a technical level, with lots of moving parts and subsystems that can be very overwhelming at first glance. When you're jumping into a new MMO, don't worry about doing things optimally or minmaxing your gear, just take it easy and go at your own pace. Don't push yourself or try to rush, because MMOs are long term time investments. You gotta sink some hours into it before you get to the meat. You'll figure things out in time.

[bride-and-bride]

Am I a Shitty Healer?

A Very Basic Guide To When You Will Feel Like You Suck But It’s Actually Just Hard

The first job I ever picked up when I started playing FFXIV was White Mage. And I loved healing in this game enough to keep at it, but I found that there were a lot of places where I found myself struggling and really questioning if I was any good.

AS IT TURNS OUT... that’s pretty normal! So lest you find yourself questioning if you’re fit for healing when you’re getting into it for the first time, here’s a bunch of points at which you’ll probably find you’re having trouble. Don’t panic and think you suck... you’ll get through it with a lil perseverance and practice!

In ARR:

Stone Vigil

Aurum Vale

Dzemael Darkhold

The very first time you end up in these dungeons as an at-level healer, you might find yourself thinking you’re in hell. That’s normal. Focus on making sure you have properly upgraded gear, particularly for your main-hand and body slot! Don’t skip your class quests, either... they offer skills that you’ll definitely need.

Specifically, Stone Vigil has difficult AoEs, Aurum Vale’s got a difficult second Boss, and both Aurum Vale and Dzemael Darkhold have rooms where it’s easy to aggro a LOT of mobs while also having hazards that can deal damage. It’s good to focus on where you stand and how you move!

(Keeper of the Lake also sucks at level, and is tricky even when you get it in roulettes later... again, focus on having up to date gear, and try to read up on the boss mechanics before you head in for the first time!)

In HW:

The Vault

Final Steps of Faith

One of these is a dungeon, the other is a trail, but both are places at which you’ll find the difficulty of healing jumping a bit higher than you might expect. For the Vault, it’s extremely vital to make sure you have properly upgraded gear... the 130 ironworks gear won’t be enough anymore! For Final Steps, it’s quite helpful to read about the fight ahead of time, and really make sure you’re familiar with your aoe healing spells. It’s easier now, but it can be intimidating on your first time none the less... luckily, you have a co-healer to help out!

In SB:

The Pool of Tribute

Bardam’s Mettle

Castrum Abania

The Royal Menagerie

The Pool of Tribute is a trial, and an early one which can be difficult in part because it USUALLY TAKES... quite a while to finish. The attack patterns are rather predictable but because it goes on and on, people tend to get a bit messier in the later stages. Keep an eye on your MP!

Bardam’s Mettle and Castrum Abania are notable because the trash pulls in them hit like a truck. This is pretty common in stormblood dungeons, but don’t be afraid to ask your tank to take one pull at a time, because some of the more innocuous looking pulls can be surprisingly vicious.

The Royal Menagerie.... well, just don’t get discouraged if you find it difficult, try to practice not getting too focused on healing to the point of losing track of the fight around you, and having sprint on your bars will prove a useful tool.

So How Do I Get Better?

I couldn’t say too much... I know I’m definitely always improving in my own healing, too, and I’m still realizing things that make my life easier. However, I think there’s some basic things you can do as a healer to help yourself improve!

Read your Action Descriptions Carefully!

It’s easy to miss details unless you actually take a good look at what your actions do, and it’s always embarrassing to realize you were missing something. For example, WHM’s Assize also restores an amount of MP when you use it... AST’s Essential Dignity does MORE Healing if it’s used on a target with lower HP, and SCH’s Rouse makes your Fairy immune to some status ailments (useful if they’re in the path of a Morbol’s Breath!) You should have an idea of what your stances do as an Astrologian or what Fairy Actions Scholar’s have access to!

In addition, several times you’ll get ‘2′ versions of your existing healing spells... and it’s important to take a look at how they all function, since it’s not a simple case of always using the highest numbered heal you have! Benefic I and Cure I both save you a certain amount of MP and can proc special effects on Benefic II and Cure II, and Medica I and Helios do more raw healing than Medica II or Aspected Helios.

Consider your Role Actions according to what you do!

Some of the Healer skills are extremely vital, and you’ll want to have on your bars most of the time... others are very situational, and can depend on what you’re going to be running and what your style of healing is! For example, most groups will expect Protect at the start of runs, and Swiftcast is an absolute must-have for quick raises in battles... 

But Esuna is also an extremely useful tool, and having it quick at hand when someone’s paralyzed or slowed is a great help, and getting in the habit of looking for esuna-able Debuffs is a good one to have.

As for other role actions, it’s great to know that SCH’s Deployment Tactics also spreads Eye for an Eye, Lucid Dreaming gives you increased MP regeneration while it’s active, and Surecast actually prevents knockback and draw-in effects--all tools which can be very valuable in specific cases!

Know your Tank and Co-Healers

Being able to understand how best to work with different classes can make all kinds of runs a lot easier... and particularly in 8-man and raid content, knowing your fellow healers is vital! For example, any character can only have ONE shield effect on them at a time... AST’s Nocturnal Shields overwrite each other and SCH shields and vice-versa... if you’re an AST with a SCH, using Nocturnal Sect will give them a migraine and waste a lot of good healing, and if you have two AST’s the most effective way to go is to have one Nocturnal and one Diurnal healer!

For your tank, each one has a specific ‘last chance cooldown’ that acts differently. Paladin’s Hallowed Ground, for example, prevents ALL damage during it’s duration, meaning you can focus healing elsewhere... while Warrior’s Holmgang doesn’t prevent damage, meaning you need to try and get them back up before it ends and they’re in a bad place! Dark Knight is unusual... their Living Dead makes it so that if they would be killed, they’re instead put in a ‘Walking Dead’ state during which they can’t drop below 1 hp... but they MUST be healed for an amount equaling their full hp before the buff ends, or they’ll die, regardless of if they have hp remaining.

There’s other quirks and benefits you can find with all kinds of classes... from Monk’s Mantra which buffs healing, to Bard’s Warden’s Paean, which can esuna a debuff OR put up a ward to prevent one, to Bard and Machinist’s ability to help regenerate MP, to the different DPS casters being able to transfer a portion of their own MP to you. The more you learn about other classes, the more you can work in cooperation with them!

Know your Limit Break!

Before you hit 50, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll never end up using a Limit Break in a dungeon or trial. Afterwards, however... there will be times when the Healer Limit Break can be the difference between victory and defeat, and having it on your bar saves a lot of heartache.

The Healer LB 1 and 2 are unlikely to get used... but restore 25 and 60% of the entire party’s HP and MP, respectively. Healer LB3 on the other hand... restores full HP and MP to all party members and instantly revives any who are dead at the time! It’s important to note there IS a range on this... people who are VERY far away might miss out, and it locks you in place until the animation ends, meaning it’s possible to bring everyone back only to get caught in an AoE and fall yourself.

This got a lot longer than I meant to, and I’m definitely not any kind of expert... just a bug who really likes to ramble and sometimes gets the burning urge to write guides for things. Still... I think healing in FFXIV is fun as heck, and I can’t help but want more people to feel confident that they can do it, even if they find it tough here and there!

THANKS FOR READING THIS FAR, WOW!

[entergamingxp]

Final Fantasy 14’s big 5.3 patch opens up the path to new players • Eurogamer.net

It’s been almost seven years since the release of Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, a game whose story has been recounted countless times, after putting Naoki Yoshida in the director’s chair, who since pulled the game from the brink of disaster with the release of A Realm Reborn. Fast forward seven years, with a few critically-acclaimed expansions under their belts, the Final Fantasy 14 team looks back at older content, and introducing the game to new players with patch 5.3.

“There isn’t any time to relax, or chill out at the moment,” producer and director Naoki Yoshida tells me over Zoom. Final Fantasy 14 has just hit 20 million registered players, but according to Yoshida it’s still not enough for Square-Enix’s President and CEO, Yosuke Matsuda. “We have to continue driving this forward, so there’s really no time to relax, or lower our guard.”

The latest patch for Final Fantasy 14 was delayed by a few months, due to disruption no thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, as announced via a live stream from Yoshida in May. “The situation has affected us heavily these past months. It’s really hard for us to get back on track.” With schedules out of the window, just what is it like to run an active MMO with millions of players during a pandemic?

“Even through this situation, the FF14 team is in a good workflow, there’s a great team with a high sense of responsibility… At the moment, 90 per cent of developers are working from home currently, and they’re starting to get familiar with the change in environment. As for the mentality and psychological perspective. I’m confident that we’re all quite stable, and we can focus on the work. We’re getting back to normality.”

The patch, which releases on August 11th on all platforms, is going under the name Reflections in Crystal.

5.3 is due to be released on the 11th of August, and Square-Enix has since released a mini site for all the new additions to the game. However, just underneath the surface more significant changes are being made to the game in order to accommodate new players, starting with a complete overhaul of the content released in the original game, which was created in just two and a half years, according to Yoshida.

“We needed to create really tight guidelines for creating quests. For example, they have to make each quest 9 minutes long, including all the text and all that. Because we had the concept that we want the players to spend a lot of time on those quests, that’s why we made that kind of guideline for each quest. With that, as a result, it kind of revealed so many quests that may be unnecessary, or lots of excess steps which you don’t really need, so we wanted to revisit and remove all the excess quests and unnecessary bits, because we thought that the focus has to be for players to enjoy the storyline.”

Yoshida’s words ring true. The first hours of A Realm Reborn are rough, and can be a significant turn-off for many newer players of Final Fantasy 14, but this streamlining does not come without its own challenges. “If we just take out some bits from the existing storyline, then we have to take out the NPCs that may be playing the key role, or really important role, and it could also affect the lore of the world and everything. We listed all the quests that are included in ARR, and then we figured out the priority, and the necessity of the quests existing in the game or not. This removal of the unnecessary quests, took up a third of the entire workload.”

But if new players still want to experience all of the content that was in the vanilla release of FF14, Yoshida has words of reassurance. “Those quests that are decommissioned, we didn’t really remove them completely,” he says. “We moved them to side quests. For anyone who has the time and wants to dig more for lore and stuff like that, then they can spend time on it.”

The Heroes’ Gauntlet Dungeon in action.

Exactly how many quests have been removed or altered? “We didn’t really count, because if you do that then it will be so disheartening, discouraging,” says Yoshida with a laugh. “So many quests are there, so we didn’t track how many quests we needed to work on.”

Regardless of just how many quests have been removed from the game, it’ll make the game significantly easier for new players to get into. But as a seasoned Final Fantasy 14 player, I had some bones to pick. In the base game, there is a location that you need to repeatedly return to, with no fast-travel links nearby named The Waking Sands. What’s the deal?

“It’s a hideout, so it feels so cheap, so easy. (to put a fast-travel location there) We don’t have any intentions to implement an Aetheryte (fast travel point) near that location. That said, we totally get that this is a really time-consuming journey, where you have to come up any time Minfilia calls you to come over. That’s why… This is kind of new information that we’ve not really revealed to anyone yet. We actually have a new item, a kind of teleport ticket you can use to teleport to Camp Horizon straight away. You might be wondering, even though there isn’t an Aetheryte ‘How come Teleportation is possible here?’ Anyway, it’s a special item for easing the travel burden. Please don’t be angry at Minfilia.”

But, I wasn’t quite done yet with the list of sorely-needed quality of life changes to the base content of the game. There are two infamous dungeons in A Realm Reborn, Castrum Meridianum and The Praetorium. Both are pretty lengthy, with unskippable cutscenes every time they might come up during a daily dungeon roulette where you can get extra bonus XP. It’s not uncommon in these dungeons for some players to be AFK, and just wait for others to complete it for them. What’s going to be done with these now-archaic dungeons?

“We came to the conclusion that it would be easier just to create those two eight-man dungeons from scratch, rather than tweaking the existing content,” says Yoshida. “We totally understand that those two dungeons are very time-consuming, so we have discussed it, but we let go of the idea. We were looking into it, and we thought that it would be best to create new dungeons, but kind of separate out the battle against Ultima Weapon as kind of standalone content outside of those two dungeons. When we do that we will make sure that it will be trust system compatible.”

The Yo-Kai Watch collaboration also returns from August 19th.

The trust system has been introduced in the latest expansion, Shadowbringers. This allows you to go through dungeons with a party of capable NPCs, instead of other players, for those looking for a more single-player experience.”We cannot say when it’s going to be happening, but it’s something in our mind, and we want to do it at some point in future.”

From Yoshida’s responses, it’s clear the team is dedicated to a significant rehaul of content to make the game more friendly to new players. This is assisted by a hugely expanded free trial, which now includes the base game in addition to its first expansion, Heavensward. However, this free trial does exclude some key community features such as being unable to trade using Final Fantasy 14’s market boards in addition to restricting chat and the ability to party up with friends. “We’re not considering changing the current business model of subscriptions, it helps us maintain the quality of the game,” says Yoshida. “There’s a risk of RMT, real money trading, and stuff like that, so once they can use those tools, they’ll just use it and it’ll rise to uncontrollable levels.”

Yoshida also gave a lengthy explanation as to how subscriptions essentially protect Final Fantasy 14 against a higher influx of RMT in the game, which is an incredibly costly endeavour, but it remains to be seen how many players of the new expanded free-trial will be turned off by the lack of community functionality.

However, there is still new content to look forward to in 5.3 for existing players in the form of a new raid, in addition to other side content. But, there’s still one key beloved Final Fantasy 14 character seemingly missing in action. Fan-favourite Hildebrand is a rubbish detective, with an incredibly fun quest line that players experienced five years ago. But, since then he’s been missing in action.

“I don’t currently know the whereabouts of Hildebrand. I don’t know where he is. I can’t go into more details here, but in 5.3 you may or may not find him, not as himself, but more like a tip or a clue as to where he might be. I would like you and all players to join together and search for clues that’ll be dotted around in-game.”

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With a slew of crossover content in Final Fantasy 14, such as the Nier raid series that’s due to be expanded, or the Ivalice raid series, which contains winks and nods to Final Fantasy 12 and Final Fantasy Tactics, or even the FF15 content released several years ago, we wondered about the absence of some high-profile games that the team could have collaborated on.

“We’ve had lots of feedback and lots of hopes that with the FF7 Remake that we’ll do some crossover with them. It’s just part one of the journey, so we need to kind of nail down all the details and flesh it out, so it may take a while, it will take time to actually make something great. That said, we are positively looking into it, and we have hope that we want to do something with this at some point in the future. As for a Kingdom Hearts crossover, for this idea, one of the troubles is that we have to coordinate with Disney, and so I feel that there would be so many hurdles and challenges around working with them, so I try not to think about a crossover with Kingdom Hearts.”

Patch 5.3 of Final Fantasy 14 signifies the end of the current bigger patch cycle for their latest expansion, Shadowbringers. Since it’s been almost ten years since the original release of Final Fantasy 14, just how long does the game have left.

“We haven’t set any goal for how long the game will continue. As long as players enjoy playing the game, then I think we will continue delivering the great content. We don’t really have any sense of time set yet. FF14 is the game that we’ve created, with not only the people on the development team, but with the players around the world. Even though my life may end at some point, I hope that the game will continue after that, that someone will succeed me and continue. That’s my hope.”

Before our time with Yoshida was up, we asked Yoshida if there was any event where he would personally stop working on Final Fantasy 14. With swirling rumours around another project in the works at Square-Enix’s Creative Business Unit 3 and Yoshida himself having to actively deny that he’ll be the director of Final Fantasy 16, could he potentially be taken out of the directors chair anytime soon.

“The possibility would be that either I fell ill, died, or if the CEO fires me. It’s okay, you don’t need to worry about it.”

With Final Fantasy 14’s player base continuing to grow, allowances for new players, and a charismatic director at the helm there seems to be no end in sight for Final Fantasy 14. Patch 5.3 drops on August 11th – and it should contribute to what continues to be one of the strongest MMORPGs in recent memory.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/final-fantasy-14s-big-5-3-patch-opens-up-the-path-to-new-players-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=final-fantasy-14s-big-5-3-patch-opens-up-the-path-to-new-players-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[ostentenacity]

not a wolqotd more a player-qotd. my friends and i have something we call "Favorites Roulette", which is where we queue up for 5 normal-mode trials/raids that we like and do whichever one we get just for fun. i'm curious to know what other people's "Favorites Roulette" would be! no need to limit yourself to just 5 though, that's just an arbitrary limit because you can only queue for 5 individual instances at once.

any criteria goes! i usually pick fights that i think have fun mechanics but you can pick them for any reason - story relevance, music, sentimental value, etc. no need to stick to 8-player content either if you like dungeons better, my friends and i just do trials and raids because they tend to take 5-10 minutes each whereas dungeons are more like 10-20.

(my own personal favorites + musing on boss fight design under the cut. spoilers ahoy!)

my personal Favorites Roulette (if i could pick more than 5 lol) is:

e11/Anamorphosis (Fatebreaker)

Seat of Sacrifice (Warrior of Light)

Voidcast Dais (Golbez)

o12/Alphascape 4.0 (Omega M/F)

Castrum Marinum (Emerald Weapon)

p10/Anabaseios Tenth Circle (Pandaemonium)

The Final Day (Endsinger)

honorable mentions:

e5/Fulmination (Eden!Ramuh)

e4/Sepulture (Eden!Titan)

Dark Inside (Zodiark)

Storm's Crown (Barbariccia)

once they are no longer current (because we don't typically tend to put very recent things in Favorites Roulette, it's more for revisiting old favorites) i think m1/Black Cat and the final trial of Dawntrail may end up in the mix as well.

in story-mode content i don't tend to like add phases very much, and when they do happen i much prefer an interesting miniboss rather than a crowd of mobs. (this is why Hades didn't make the cut even though i love the rest of that fight.) i tend to like fights which are (to me) mechanically interesting, especially ones which are similar to their higher-difficulty versions - but that's not everything, because Endsinger normal is pretty different from the extreme mode and I prefer the normal one way more, and p9 normal isn't a favorite despite the fact that its one of the most mechanically intricate normal-mode raids in the whole game. i also don't tend to pick a lot of mid-expansion trials, or anything from under level 70, because both of those make doing my rotation feel Weird.

i think it's super interesting to consider what makes boss fights fun for different people! for me personally i tend to value "game feel" a lot and i'm curious if that's the case for anyone else or if i'm an outlier.