Longtime LOTRO player here, since 2009 ... played SWTOR off and on for the last couple of years as well ... tried ESO but found it a bit too bland ... Am looking for a fresh start in a new fantasy world with plenty of intelligent PvE content, and a great epic storyline. I do not know anything about the lore behind Final Fantasy. Will this be a hindrance ?
Also, I see that the game is B2P. Is there a subscription fee as well I have to account for ?
Mog Station really isn't the best of account management sites, I must say. That is one thing I have noticed up front.
Thanks in advance for any advice that anyone can give.
Travis
Comments
* All subscription fees are subject to change in accordance with the terms of the FINAL FANTASY XIV User Agreement
But yes, you need box + monthly subscription. Keep in mind FF XIV is the second biggest MMO globally after WoW. It also has a cash shop for mounts, pets, race changes and weddings.
Of course there is also Heavensward, the new expansion, but it has exactly 0 content for new players, beside the new race, the Au Ra. So if you do not care about making one of those, you do not have to buy the expansion until much later.
There is no such a thing as the "lore" of Final Fantasy as each Final Fantasy usually take place in different worlds with different stories (only exception is FF XII that takes place in the world of FF Tactics). The lore of this FF is not very well defined outside the game, but you will be immersed in several stories setting the tone and the theme of the world.
The story is very important here and will lead you to mandatory dungeons and encounters you cannot do alone, so be advised that while there is plenty of solo content, this is very much a group game.
Combat is fairly standard tab targeting, so do not expect any of the latest "actiony" combat like in GW2 or even Wildstar. It is traditional with tank, dps and healer roles well defined and needed to go through group content, however, you can switch class at any time and so you do not necessarily need to make many characters alt if you do not want to. Leveling up characters is not fast and you need to start from 0 every time you want to start a new class, but without the world story quests, which can make it a bit difficult.
However, there are plenty of other things to do, like dynamic events, dungeons, group quests and so on. Also abilities you gain in classes can be used by other classes, for example the Thaumaturge ability "Swift Cast" that permit you to cast a spell instantly, is very much useful to ANY caster class, so you will see many players with Thaumaturge at level 26 even if they do not want to play a caster DPS.
Crafting follows the same process, each different type is a class in its own right and there is a quite deep mini-game for it also going with the same principles that you gain cross-class abilities by leveling up other crafting classes.
Finally, be advised that before accessing the Expansion pack content, you need to finish the "vanilla" content and all the patches that came before the expansion, this might take a while but by all accounts, it is very much worth your while.
Also the graphics, sounds and all production values are OVER THE TOP! this is one pretty game.
For a quick comparison, this would be like if before accessing Outlands in World of Wacraft, you would need to complete all level 60 dungeons in order and go through all the possible events released before the expansion, it does not require you to do raids, at least I do not think so. Also much of the top level content is item-level gated and this used to be a problem, but ilevel from quest rewards has been greatly increased with the expansion, so you should not need to do any "side" content to access the expansion.
For full disclosure, I played FF XIV for a couple of months, got a Paladin in the level 40-ish and all crafting classes to at least level 20 with many higher than that, so I never experienced the expansion material.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
the game is P2P , u get 30 days buying FFXIV:ARR , really cheap , but u can play the trial , so go ahead , download it and play !
http://ffxiv-freetrial.com/
p.d lol the link doesnt feel like legit but its
Like Skuall says, have the patience to get through the Mog station and get your free trial.
I prefer fewer class choices, because more choices really comes down to, which guide do I follow, because math. In games like EvE I try to do to many different things to quickly and end up sucking in everything.
FF, as a series, is very story-centric. Story-centric games tend to have a lot of cut-scenes. Not sure what you were expecting when you decided to play a Final Fantasy game. They make those scenes un-skippable because they're kind of important to your character's introduction and place in the world, and they probably make this crazy assumption that since you're playing a FF game, that you probably are interested in story.
That you find them "overly long" is not an indictment of the content, but merely an indication of your, seemingly low, patience level, and/or poor decision making when choosing a MMO to play that suits your tastes.
Kill and Fed-Ex quests in a modern MMO. Sounds pretty standard to me. Why are you playing a modern-style MMO if you don't enjoy, or take such issue with such quests? Incidentally, there are numerous quests which do not fit that description. Not surprisingly, you neglect to mention those.
Class/Skill progression... again, pretty common/standard for modern MMOs (which is exactly what they were going for with ARR). As for it being entirely linear and exactly the same. No. There's cross-class skills. You can train up other classes to learn their skills, then use them on another class to round it out, or give yourself some extra versatility in how you play. Of course, you completely neglect to mention that, as well. I'm beginning to notice a pattern here.
The reason other people like the game is simply because other people have other interests and things they enjoy that aren't always going to be in line with your interests and likes. Crazy concept to wrap your head around, I know. But... ya know.. There ya have it.
What turned me off about GW2 is that you get the best gear very easily, and from there it is just about finding gear that looks fancy. SWTOR was the same way! I want to be able to end game raid and get rare and exotic items that have unique effects etc.
Does this game have PVP? Open world PVP? How is the end game content etc? Is the game so old that I will have a hard time finding people to play with until I am super high level?
Thanks everyone!
As for PVE this is the best game for PVE. You are forced to group together with people for leveling because you cannot progress without doing the instances. The Main Storyline is a must complete and there are countless instances that you need to group for basically. As for Unique Effects gear and all that, there is none of that here. Your abilities have unique effects and each job has its strengthens and weaknesses think Pre-WOTLK WOW for this.
Then the community.. always going to get bad apples in any game but for the most part, this has to be one of the best post WoW MMO communities you can find. I've been leveling a monk in duty finder (dungeon queue) and not once have I came across an abusive or rude player. A fair few times I've came across groups with poor tanks, one poor guy had absolutely no idea how to tank yet nobody complained and both myself and the other DPS tried to compensate for the tank and make things easier for him.. in most other MMOs I've played (WoW, SWTOR etc) that tank would have been kicked at the first opportunity and/or given a ton of abuse.
Sadly though, I also came from SWTOR and so far (level 42 in the story quests) I've been disappointed with FF14's storytelling. It's not that the story is particularly bad, it's just that it can't compare to the animations and voice overs of the SWTOR story. Not to mention your Character has no personality or lines, just nods his head and shows glimpses of emotion every once in a while. The story is still leaps and bounds ahead of pretty much every other MMO though.
But of all my classes, I do have one that hits 20 skills (SCH) on my toolbars (2 full bars) - but about 12 of those are very situational. I keep all my classes to 8 or less main keys. That, and the fact that the game is extremely controller-friendly also says something as to the number of abilities you absolutely need to keep on hand at any given time.
If you can't figure out how to prioritize your abilities, macro abilities, or sort your tool bars, then yeah, FFXIV isn't the game for you. It does throw abilities at you the entire time you are leveling up, and it leaves it more or less up to you to figure out what to do with them (although the class quests often provide some hints). While I don't do "end game" stuff, I haven't run across any situation where I needed access to each and every ability in a classes toolkit, and I have plenty of them leveled up.
And in every single regard FFXIV excels. It's a really beautiful, amazingly crafted game. There's a GCD sure, but combat feels fluid, responsive, and impactful. And there's so much to do! I dunno. I should probably stop before I convince myself to resub (taking a break until 3.1 in theory).
It's really good. Yeah. Play the trial. If you like it, you'll like it all the way through.
For me, when I say I like group centric games, I mean games that require grouping in the sense that you need to go out and make friends that aren't gonna screw you over, and you need to look for people manually to group with. That formed real relationships and lasting memories unlike any I've had since FFXI and to a lesser extent the earliest days of WoW.
Originally posted by Scagweed22
is it the graphics? the repetativenesses? i mean what is the point? you could be so much more productive in real life
Real life brings repetition and pointlessness too. The only thing real life offers is Great graphics. Its kinda expensive too and way to dependent on the cash shop. Totally pay to win as well. No thank you. Ill stick to my games.