I started playing FFXIV recently as I had a lot of free time on holiday vacation in December, it’s been about a month now. Tried it once before and couldn't get into it but something clicked this time and I'm hooked. Kept a log of thoughts as I played through ARR and finally got to the start of Heavensward. If anyone cares to read my lengthy sprout observations from the journey:
Assorted Thoughts
I made a mustachioed Hyur Pugilist with the idea of being a gentleman boxer type, like Dudley from Street Fighter. Didn’t really work out that way since even from the early levels the pugilist’s moves are more kung fu than boxing, but I still find it fun. I hear some people hate positionals but I like them as they keep me engaged, even if I still flub them sometimes. I guess I lucked out too because the monk was reworked like the week before I started, which I only found out when I tried looking up some guides later which were now all outdated.
This game can look absolutely gorgeous some times, and then a cutscene will zoom in on a horrendously low resolution texture.
On December 23, two people at separate times randomly stop to give me free stuff and wish me happy holidays and I am genuinely grateful for the gesture even though it probably didn't cost much. On New Year's, I watch a lalafell band perform in Limsa with a large crowd. It feels nice to celebrate with people when it's hard to in the real world currently.
I guess there's more to the monk quests after 50 that I haven't gotten to yet but I enjoyed the pugilist quests a lot more than the 30-50 monk line. Don’t care for Widargelt or Erik while Hamon Holyfist was great. Widargelt literally taking off his shirt to give me the last piece of monk gear was funny though.
The Garlean commanders look like Power Ranger villains and I wish I could too as glamour. Minfilia’s outfit is absurd and gets weirder the more I look at it.
The number of times the main story gets padded with wild goose chases is infuriating and the game lampshading it doesn’t make it better. The Company of Heroes/Titan arc seems brought up a lot but I actually thought the corrupted crystal/Garuda one was worse about it. At least for the COH, it made them look like the idiots for wasting my time, but for getting the crystal, apparently my character was too dumb to say straight up what kind of crystal was needed, several times.
I thought the Coerthas story was really interesting. In the context of the greater storyline, I suppose it was kind of annoying to get waylaid from a simple task again, but I liked the intrigue and the inquisitor was a great villain for this arc.
If people like Minfilia and Cid have linkshells that they can use to call me anytime, why do they keep making me go to the Waking Sands/Rising Stones just for a chat before telling me to go somewhere else?!
"Hear. Feel. Think." "Is there aught amiss?" "Pray return to the Waking Sands." Ahhhhhhhhh
Baby's First Dungeons
I bite the bullet and queue for Sastasha and it’s one of the most overwhelming experiences of my life. I sit in queue for 10 minutes wondering if I should just cancel, then immediately on loading in, three Active Helper notifications pop up at once. I’m trying to read through tips about grouping, limit breaks, and loot distribution while people start running ahead. There’s so much happening between all the enemies pulled and particle effects being vomited on the screen. I keep pressing buttons hoping for the best. After the second miniboss when there's a lull, I type “I have no idea what’s happening” to which someone replies “pirates bad, we kill” and another says “your punching dudes so its good
” which makes me happy but doesn’t help as my confusion is less a lack of mechanical or story understanding and more about questioning my life choices.
In Haukke Manor, we beat a boss and then everyone disappears. I think for a moment “it’s over? That was underwhelming” before one guy who lingered tells me to use Return.
Ifrit: I'd basically been rolling my face on the keyboard focusing on bosses during dungeons as they get burned so fast it wasn’t really necessary to look at adds... we wiped three times before one of the other sprouts finally expressed their confusion and a more experienced player told us to focus the nail when it appears as it's been killing everyone. We easily clear the next attempt.
Got yeeted off by Titan early in the fight. Up til now I'd been able to respawn or gotten a rez fairly quick so when my view moves up close to the fight but I’m unable to do anything, I think my game is bugged and type “uh should I be stuck with my camera up Titan’s ass right now...?” to which the only reply I get is “lol” as I sit and wait for the fight to finish, feeling wholly inadequate that the group does just fine without my dps.
By late ARR, I'm pretty sure all my commendations as a dps are because I was the only one left in the room at the end after watching a cutscene and I start giving commendations to other dps when able to show them some love.
End of ARR MSQ
There's like 40-something levels between meeting Biggs and Wedge for the first time to actually hearing their voices in a cutscene, which clashed with my internal voicing of them like Timon and Pumbaa.
I loved the Scion rescue mission and wished there were more solo duties like this in the MSQ. Some really cool moments where it felt the other Scions were actually helping instead of being talking heads.
The MSQ jumping from level 46 for Black Wolf’s Ultimatum to 49 for Operation Archon really threw me off. I didn’t really mind since I wanted to spend some time exploring other things, but up til then I had always been on level or higher for the story and it seemed random to just throw in this gap that threw off the pacing as the plot seemed to be pressing. With the fate of Eorzea in the balance, I left for several days to gamble at the Golden Saucer and level up crafters. I crafted 12 copper rings for a goldsmith job quest, not realizing “copper rings” is a different item.
At Cape Westwind, someone warns in chat that Rhitahtyn is a really hard fight but I’ve already seen the jokes as I've gotten paranoid about not pulling my weight and read up on fights beforehand. He still somehow ends up being even easier than I thought for my first 8-man.
Waited half an hour to get into Castrum Meridianum and matched with a party of 7 that seemed like they were helping a friend through the story. I followed behind as they zoomed past everything, triggering a cutscene what seemed like every 30 seconds. The Livia fight was incredibly underwhelming with the tedious cannon phase and then she just melts in her second phase.
In the Praetorium, I embarrassingly didn’t grab the key for the mech. I thought it was like other dungeons where only one person had to grab an item and cancelled my interaction at like 90% because everyone was already heading to the elevator. When I saw everyone going into a mech and a cutscene and it said I didn’t have access I realized I had to go back down the elevator for the key… by the time I had finished, everyone was gone. After stomping around a bit in my armor trying to catch up, I got teleported into the Nero fight with him halfway dead. For some reason, the cutscenes randomly start getting voiced in the middle of the dungeon. It's also really strange how sometimes the story treats you like you're alone in a dungeon, and other times it says you're with fellow adventurers, and I think this one flip flopped several times between both.
I kind of hated both of these last two dungeons due to the terrible pacing between the cutscenes and gameplay. I wished they were either more of a long solo duty like the rescue mission, or a series of trials with cutscenes between.
I sat through the entire credit roll (with some fast-forwarding). Yes, I know it’s skippable, but it’s a tradition for me to stay for game credits just to see if there’s anything interesting and it gives me time to reflect on the game. The longest credits I had sat through before were GTA V’s but this one beats it on account of including the “Meteor Survivors” list, which was fun to read through.
Post-ARR MSQ
Having everyone clap for me at the Waking Sands after the credits felt like the congratulations scene from Evangelion.
Where the hell did Alisaie go? (This gets explained but I had this note for a long time going through ARR as she just left and I expected her to come back to the story much earlier. Alphinaud never even mentions her, what a good brother)
Merlwyb just shooting the sahagin when they're summoning Leviathan was awesome even if it didn't help. I liked the set-up to the post-ARR primal trials more than the actual ARR ones.
As more things get voiced, the more I realize how wrong my mental readings were: I can never read Good King Moggle Mog correctly, it's always Moogle Mog to me. I can’t get over the fact that it’s pronounced Rah-moo. Harchefaunt has a real voice for the first time and I’m dismayed that House Fortemps isn’t pronounced like an unemployment agency like I had thought. That’s how Roaille is pronounced?!
Aymeric must have been scientifically calculated to be as hot as possible with the limited amount of polygons available for a character model.
I always liked checking in with my crew between missions in games like Mass Effect and other rpgs, so having near every mission start and end at the Rising Stones and chatting with everyone before continuing the MSQ felt really cozy. It's all optional but I like the NPC dialogue. Checking in with them and seeing stuff like Thancred slumped over drunk or Hoary Boulder trying to impress Yda was fun.
Hi Moenbryda, you have very distracting thighs. Oh bye Moenbryda T_T
Aww, tiny Midgardsormr... please stop talking to me and just look cute on my shoulder. Fuck Nabriales' sideburns.
Wondered why the characters kept mentioning in the Crystal Tower that Phlegethon was often confused with Acheron and found out this whole doozy of renaming that happened.
When they said make time for a lot of cutscenes at the end of 2.x, they really meant it. Got hit with the hour long Metal Gear in-game movie. I’m emotionally invested in the story now, I was actually grinding my teeth in anger during many portions of the penultimate quest/looong cutscene. Fuuuuck Teledji Adeledji. I know there's plenty of good lalafell NPCs but damn, something about being a lala amplifies any shitty behavior they do tenfold.
Pre-Heavensward Thoughts
I enjoyed ARR for the most part and I really enjoyed the post-ARR stuff. People say it just gets better after this so I'm really excited to keep playing. I intended to play this pretty much just for the single-player story content and was always reluctant to start because of the mandatory grouping for dungeons but it's been going well. The duty finder has made it easy to get through and people have been nice and helpful. I can actually see myself getting into raiding once I catch up because it is fun fighting bosses with other people. I'm also kind of addicted to the Gold Saucer and some of my play sessions are just playing cactpot and doing GATEs. It's also just cozy chatting with FC members or hanging out in a city. I am hooked for the long haul.
I read up on some of the changes they made to streamline the MSQ and think it certainly helped my early experience. Being able to fly in ARR areas definitely alleviates the tedious back and forth. Leveling was a breeze due to the ridiculous experience from the MSQ, though it did make me eventually stop doing side quests in later areas as they didn't reward much compared to just plowing through the MSQ. I'll go back and do them eventually, some of the side quests actually had more interesting lore and story than the actual MSQ in that area.
I looked up what happened, but it's kind of funny that due to removed quests, there's an entire section where the other Scions have an ordeal in the sylphlands that I get no explanation on, it's just a wild story they mention like a drunken escapade. I kind of wish some of those quests remained in some way, as I like the character interactions.
Gettting repeatedly betrayed by minor NPCs throughout the story stung enough, I'd be heartbroken if one of the more major characters turned on me.
Finding out that Isainne from the Starlight event quests was supposed to be a child Elezen (first one with the kid model I had seen) gave me the horrendous realization that one day Alphinaud will be taller than me.
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Assorted Thoughts
I made a mustachioed Hyur Pugilist with the idea of being a gentleman boxer type, like Dudley from Street Fighter. Didn’t really work out that way since even from the early levels the pugilist’s moves are more kung fu than boxing, but I still find it fun. I hear some people hate positionals but I like them as they keep me engaged, even if I still flub them sometimes. I guess I lucked out too because the monk was reworked like the week before I started, which I only found out when I tried looking up some guides later which were now all outdated.
This game can look absolutely gorgeous some times, and then a cutscene will zoom in on a horrendously low resolution texture.
On December 23, two people at separate times randomly stop to give me free stuff and wish me happy holidays and I am genuinely grateful for the gesture even though it probably didn't cost much. On New Year's, I watch a lalafell band perform in Limsa with a large crowd. It feels nice to celebrate with people when it's hard to in the real world currently.
I guess there's more to the monk quests after 50 that I haven't gotten to yet but I enjoyed the pugilist quests a lot more than the 30-50 monk line. Don’t care for Widargelt or Erik while Hamon Holyfist was great. Widargelt literally taking off his shirt to give me the last piece of monk gear was funny though.
The Garlean commanders look like Power Ranger villains and I wish I could too as glamour. Minfilia’s outfit is absurd and gets weirder the more I look at it.
The number of times the main story gets padded with wild goose chases is infuriating and the game lampshading it doesn’t make it better. The Company of Heroes/Titan arc seems brought up a lot but I actually thought the corrupted crystal/Garuda one was worse about it. At least for the COH, it made them look like the idiots for wasting my time, but for getting the crystal, apparently my character was too dumb to say straight up what kind of crystal was needed, several times.
I thought the Coerthas story was really interesting. In the context of the greater storyline, I suppose it was kind of annoying to get waylaid from a simple task again, but I liked the intrigue and the inquisitor was a great villain for this arc.
If people like Minfilia and Cid have linkshells that they can use to call me anytime, why do they keep making me go to the Waking Sands/Rising Stones just for a chat before telling me to go somewhere else?!
"Hear. Feel. Think." "Is there aught amiss?" "Pray return to the Waking Sands." Ahhhhhhhhh
Baby's First Dungeons
I bite the bullet and queue for Sastasha and it’s one of the most overwhelming experiences of my life. I sit in queue for 10 minutes wondering if I should just cancel, then immediately on loading in, three Active Helper notifications pop up at once. I’m trying to read through tips about grouping, limit breaks, and loot distribution while people start running ahead. There’s so much happening between all the enemies pulled and particle effects being vomited on the screen. I keep pressing buttons hoping for the best. After the second miniboss when there's a lull, I type “I have no idea what’s happening” to which someone replies “pirates bad, we kill” and another says “your punching dudes so its good
” which makes me happy but doesn’t help as my confusion is less a lack of mechanical or story understanding and more about questioning my life choices.In Haukke Manor, we beat a boss and then everyone disappears. I think for a moment “it’s over? That was underwhelming” before one guy who lingered tells me to use Return.
Ifrit: I'd basically been rolling my face on the keyboard focusing on bosses during dungeons as they get burned so fast it wasn’t really necessary to look at adds... we wiped three times before one of the other sprouts finally expressed their confusion and a more experienced player told us to focus the nail when it appears as it's been killing everyone. We easily clear the next attempt.
Got yeeted off by Titan early in the fight. Up til now I'd been able to respawn or gotten a rez fairly quick so when my view moves up close to the fight but I’m unable to do anything, I think my game is bugged and type “uh should I be stuck with my camera up Titan’s ass right now...?” to which the only reply I get is “lol” as I sit and wait for the fight to finish, feeling wholly inadequate that the group does just fine without my dps.
By late ARR, I'm pretty sure all my commendations as a dps are because I was the only one left in the room at the end after watching a cutscene and I start giving commendations to other dps when able to show them some love.
End of ARR MSQ
There's like 40-something levels between meeting Biggs and Wedge for the first time to actually hearing their voices in a cutscene, which clashed with my internal voicing of them like Timon and Pumbaa.
I loved the Scion rescue mission and wished there were more solo duties like this in the MSQ. Some really cool moments where it felt the other Scions were actually helping instead of being talking heads.
The MSQ jumping from level 46 for Black Wolf’s Ultimatum to 49 for Operation Archon really threw me off. I didn’t really mind since I wanted to spend some time exploring other things, but up til then I had always been on level or higher for the story and it seemed random to just throw in this gap that threw off the pacing as the plot seemed to be pressing. With the fate of Eorzea in the balance, I left for several days to gamble at the Golden Saucer and level up crafters. I crafted 12 copper rings for a goldsmith job quest, not realizing “copper rings” is a different item.
At Cape Westwind, someone warns in chat that Rhitahtyn is a really hard fight but I’ve already seen the jokes as I've gotten paranoid about not pulling my weight and read up on fights beforehand. He still somehow ends up being even easier than I thought for my first 8-man.
Waited half an hour to get into Castrum Meridianum and matched with a party of 7 that seemed like they were helping a friend through the story. I followed behind as they zoomed past everything, triggering a cutscene what seemed like every 30 seconds. The Livia fight was incredibly underwhelming with the tedious cannon phase and then she just melts in her second phase.
In the Praetorium, I embarrassingly didn’t grab the key for the mech. I thought it was like other dungeons where only one person had to grab an item and cancelled my interaction at like 90% because everyone was already heading to the elevator. When I saw everyone going into a mech and a cutscene and it said I didn’t have access I realized I had to go back down the elevator for the key… by the time I had finished, everyone was gone. After stomping around a bit in my armor trying to catch up, I got teleported into the Nero fight with him halfway dead. For some reason, the cutscenes randomly start getting voiced in the middle of the dungeon. It's also really strange how sometimes the story treats you like you're alone in a dungeon, and other times it says you're with fellow adventurers, and I think this one flip flopped several times between both.
I kind of hated both of these last two dungeons due to the terrible pacing between the cutscenes and gameplay. I wished they were either more of a long solo duty like the rescue mission, or a series of trials with cutscenes between.
I sat through the entire credit roll (with some fast-forwarding). Yes, I know it’s skippable, but it’s a tradition for me to stay for game credits just to see if there’s anything interesting and it gives me time to reflect on the game. The longest credits I had sat through before were GTA V’s but this one beats it on account of including the “Meteor Survivors” list, which was fun to read through.
Post-ARR MSQ
Having everyone clap for me at the Waking Sands after the credits felt like the congratulations scene from Evangelion.
Where the hell did Alisaie go? (This gets explained but I had this note for a long time going through ARR as she just left and I expected her to come back to the story much earlier. Alphinaud never even mentions her, what a good brother)
Merlwyb just shooting the sahagin when they're summoning Leviathan was awesome even if it didn't help. I liked the set-up to the post-ARR primal trials more than the actual ARR ones.
As more things get voiced, the more I realize how wrong my mental readings were: I can never read Good King Moggle Mog correctly, it's always Moogle Mog to me. I can’t get over the fact that it’s pronounced Rah-moo. Harchefaunt has a real voice for the first time and I’m dismayed that House Fortemps isn’t pronounced like an unemployment agency like I had thought. That’s how Roaille is pronounced?!
Aymeric must have been scientifically calculated to be as hot as possible with the limited amount of polygons available for a character model.
I always liked checking in with my crew between missions in games like Mass Effect and other rpgs, so having near every mission start and end at the Rising Stones and chatting with everyone before continuing the MSQ felt really cozy. It's all optional but I like the NPC dialogue. Checking in with them and seeing stuff like Thancred slumped over drunk or Hoary Boulder trying to impress Yda was fun.
Hi Moenbryda, you have very distracting thighs. Oh bye Moenbryda T_T
Aww, tiny Midgardsormr... please stop talking to me and just look cute on my shoulder. Fuck Nabriales' sideburns.
Wondered why the characters kept mentioning in the Crystal Tower that Phlegethon was often confused with Acheron and found out this whole doozy of renaming that happened.
When they said make time for a lot of cutscenes at the end of 2.x, they really meant it. Got hit with the hour long Metal Gear in-game movie. I’m emotionally invested in the story now, I was actually grinding my teeth in anger during many portions of the penultimate quest/looong cutscene. Fuuuuck Teledji Adeledji. I know there's plenty of good lalafell NPCs but damn, something about being a lala amplifies any shitty behavior they do tenfold.
Pre-Heavensward Thoughts
I enjoyed ARR for the most part and I really enjoyed the post-ARR stuff. People say it just gets better after this so I'm really excited to keep playing. I intended to play this pretty much just for the single-player story content and was always reluctant to start because of the mandatory grouping for dungeons but it's been going well. The duty finder has made it easy to get through and people have been nice and helpful. I can actually see myself getting into raiding once I catch up because it is fun fighting bosses with other people. I'm also kind of addicted to the Gold Saucer and some of my play sessions are just playing cactpot and doing GATEs. It's also just cozy chatting with FC members or hanging out in a city. I am hooked for the long haul.
I read up on some of the changes they made to streamline the MSQ and think it certainly helped my early experience. Being able to fly in ARR areas definitely alleviates the tedious back and forth. Leveling was a breeze due to the ridiculous experience from the MSQ, though it did make me eventually stop doing side quests in later areas as they didn't reward much compared to just plowing through the MSQ. I'll go back and do them eventually, some of the side quests actually had more interesting lore and story than the actual MSQ in that area.
I looked up what happened, but it's kind of funny that due to removed quests, there's an entire section where the other Scions have an ordeal in the sylphlands that I get no explanation on, it's just a wild story they mention like a drunken escapade. I kind of wish some of those quests remained in some way, as I like the character interactions.
Gettting repeatedly betrayed by minor NPCs throughout the story stung enough, I'd be heartbroken if one of the more major characters turned on me.
Finding out that Isainne from the Starlight event quests was supposed to be a child Elezen (first one with the kid model I had seen) gave me the horrendous realization that one day Alphinaud will be taller than me.
submitted by /u/IsD_
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Continue reading...