I started playing towards the tail end of Stormblood in 2018, which meant my journey as a new player was through the original version of ARR and ARR patch content. Since then there have been multiple class and content reworks, especially in regard to ARR.
At the invitation of a friend to help him reactivate his old FC on Meteor DC, Yojimbo after a long period of inactivity over Dawntrail. I decided to opt to role a fresh character as server transfers cost money, and the world was (until June 2) a preferred world, which came with a significant EXP bonus for new characters. Thus, my re-journey through ARR began.
Going into this experience I set some ground-rules:
1) No asset transfer from other characters (didn't have a char on Yojimbo anyways)
2) stick to only 1 or 2 combat jobs to keep myself moving and not fill up my armory chest with a bunch of leveling sets. (I chose MNK as my main class and WAR as my secondary to earn tank bonuses from duty finder).
3) No story/level skips, I had rerolled a new char once before to play on NA with some friends, but I had liberal use of story and class skips to jump straight to endgame quickly. This time I was going the whole way, replaying the entirety of the story from ARR -> Dawntrail.
For ease of reading I've organized my thoughts on my experience by category below.
post-streamlining ARR was somewhat interesting to do exactly once. While it was better than I remember, I don't think I will voluntarily do it again as I was definitely feeling myself flagging toward the end. Once the big twist happened going into Heavensward I was kind of just done, "yeah yeah, can we get the dramatic betrayal over with already? I want to get out of this desert and go slay some dragons in the snow."
On to Heavensward I go....
submitted by /u/empyreanchaos
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Continue reading...
At the invitation of a friend to help him reactivate his old FC on Meteor DC, Yojimbo after a long period of inactivity over Dawntrail. I decided to opt to role a fresh character as server transfers cost money, and the world was (until June 2) a preferred world, which came with a significant EXP bonus for new characters. Thus, my re-journey through ARR began.
Going into this experience I set some ground-rules:
1) No asset transfer from other characters (didn't have a char on Yojimbo anyways)
2) stick to only 1 or 2 combat jobs to keep myself moving and not fill up my armory chest with a bunch of leveling sets. (I chose MNK as my main class and WAR as my secondary to earn tank bonuses from duty finder).
3) No story/level skips, I had rerolled a new char once before to play on NA with some friends, but I had liberal use of story and class skips to jump straight to endgame quickly. This time I was going the whole way, replaying the entirety of the story from ARR -> Dawntrail.
For ease of reading I've organized my thoughts on my experience by category below.
Story:
I hope you like sand: Starting as a pugilist I started in Ul'dah, and ARR never really let me leave. Sure there were excursions to fight primals in the other 2 city-states but ARR's story and patch content is far more concerned with Ul'dah and it's internal politics than Gridania and Limsa. If you start in either of the other two you do get a different early-game experience, but once the starting storylines converge, you are going to the desert state more and more until your inevitable exile to Ishgard moving into Heavensward.
The post-fix ARR patch story: This was my first time playing the "fixed" and "streamlined" patch content for ARR. Playing the game for the first time in 2018 I remembered it being an endurance trial as the storyline took a long and meandering patch before finally deciding to get on with it and booting me to Ishgard. It is definitely shorter, but considering that the storylines from ARR-patch set up a ton of plot points that are necessary for Heavensward and Stormblood to make sense, it feels like you are running around setting up a dozen different plotlines haphazardly that are not going to be resolved until multiple expansions and dozens of hours later. As a veteran I understood more of the significance of some of the events, but I would be very lost as a new player.
Blink and you miss a war: I forgot that the Garlean War of Succession and the Sacking of Doma happen during ARR patch content. The Doman plotline gets somewhat more attention due to Yugiri and the refugees becoming significant characters, but the Garlean War of Succession only gets mentioned a couple times, and I'm pretty sure I just completely missed it during my first playthrough.
Characters:
Rhitahtyn is a badass now: One of the most pleasant surprises of the reworked MSQ quests surrounding the Garleans and Operation Archon was the now solo Rhitahtyn fight at Cape Westwind. He went from a joke trial to one of the most memorable story fights I've seen in FFXIV, his final phase where he tries to take you down with him was particularly memorable.
Ali-who?: Red Alphinaud basically just vanished from the entire plot once the twins go their separate ways, if you don't do Binding Coils (which really isn't newbie friendly) she never really pops up for all of ARR. By the time it is mentioned that she made arrangements for your escape from Ul'dah going into Heavensward I was kind of like "who did what now?"
Classes:
- Early class selection & kits: I don't know if I'm just jaded but I think most classes in the game available from level 1 have pretty terrible lvl 1-50 kits. All the basic functionality is there but you will be missing half of your rotations and most of your AoE abilities for a good chunk of ARR. I chose monk mainly because the core combos are mostly complete by lvl 50 and melee classes suffer less from low level kit syndrome than casters (BLM level sync still haunts me). Even WAR at 40 still felt pretty bland, you have your single 1-2-3 combo and your AoE 1-2 and a couple defensives + steroids, but it still is an incredible straightforward and dull fighting style at that level.
Crafting and the Marketboard:
Veteran player advantage: This one the one area I could exploit hard with game knowledge to efficiently level my crafting jobs and make some easy pocket money. I got all my crafters from 1-30 to unlock desynthesis (to trash spare gear) in about a day, and ended up gil positive quickly with some clever use of the crafting log and knowing what was cheap from vendors and what would eat a hole in my pocket quickly.
The sprout trap: I can see crafting being a horrible money sink for any sprout who stumbles into it blind. Anything that requires mob drops like leather or horns that are not available from vendors rapidly jumps into the 10,000+ gil material cost range, and often the product of the craft is effectively worthless compared to the ingredient costs.
Grand Company:
- You need a license for that: I forgot how tedious the initial GC promotion grind was. While I was used to passively earning seals via trashing dungeon gear with expert delivery, I did not expect that function to be rank locked behind a hunting log and 10,000+ GC seals in promotion costs.
Conclusion:
post-streamlining ARR was somewhat interesting to do exactly once. While it was better than I remember, I don't think I will voluntarily do it again as I was definitely feeling myself flagging toward the end. Once the big twist happened going into Heavensward I was kind of just done, "yeah yeah, can we get the dramatic betrayal over with already? I want to get out of this desert and go slay some dragons in the snow."
On to Heavensward I go....
submitted by /u/empyreanchaos
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...