Hey guys,

I stopped playing FFXIV quite suddenly early this year around Feb due to unexpected real life issues, not because I was bored or disinterested in this game.
My real life issues are not yet settled completely, but I can see some dim light at the end of this dark tunnel already...should have some time for good-ol'-FF once more in the near future (say, 1 to 2 months later).

I login this weekend, through the Free Login Campaign, and I am in awe with what I see:
- many new cool gears, emotes, mounts, dungeons
- many new features, big (dungeons + gardening + omg those guild+personal housings furnitures, so creative! both dev and players) and small (CHOCOBO COLOR!!!!!! <wait.x> macro, new pets, and etc too many to count).
- upcoming new classes
- still very active community (I am on Masamune).

FFXIV right now seems very attractive for me to re-sub...but is it for real? I afraid I may be blinded by the rosy picture that I see during that few hours (not more than 5 hours of playing).

So here I am, asking:
1) Can someone give a summary of important/notable good and bad of FFXIV's current state?
2) Any important/notable good/bad future incoming features I should know? (I already know there will be new classes Ninja/Thief + some Frontline pvp...that's all).
3) I have about 350k gil on my character right now, if I ever re-sub, what I should get first, or shouldn't get yet (maybe something will become less pricey or more expensive)?
4) Most favorite class is WHM (back in Feb) iLv = 90, now still the same...if nothing much changed? Was also interested in SCH (around iLv 80). Anything I should know as WHM/SCH? Which one is more favored right now in PvE/PvP? All my other classes are lv20-25. Didn't level much on any crafting/gathering classes.

In case you need more details to give me advice:
My character is Lunariel Crystal (so you can look it up on Lodestone).
My FC disbanded right before I quit, so I have been FC-less since then, no FC now still.

Hope to hear from you veterans Thank you!

This post has been edited by unknowngst: Sep 2 2014, 02:52 PM

Welcome back!

1) idk how to answer this.. because i may be biased..
2) ninja/rogue is coming in october... Personal Housing coming in 2.38.
3) X_X.... stuff is expensive everywhere.
4) ilvl increase to 100 & 110. is totally really up 2 you how you like to play really.

First of all let's talk about the "small" part only.

Weapon.
You have three routes.

Relic route(Number 1) ilvl110
- Zenith to Atma
= 12 zodiac gems that drop from 12 different Fate location.
For the first zodiac gem drops, it might take as far as 4 to more hours depend on how fast u complete each fate.
Subsequent zodiac gem drops seems to be rather near. some 30mins , some an hour or maybe you'll never get one in a day.
Estimated time to get all zodiac gems and upgrade to atma ( 24hrs - a month or more)

-Atma to Animus.
Finally you grind through this nightmare, wait no, you've more to go.
9 books with each book costing 1500 myths to buy.

Getting MYTHS:
for high level DR = 100 bonus myth plus a random high level dungeon that seats around 70myths.
So total you hit 170 myths as a bonus for a day.
If you manage to get Brayflox speedrun, you're on a 11-15mins run.
Crystal Tower goes for 200 myths per run but it takes 30mins or more. You'll not be any interested on the run since it drops nothing useful.

Hurray First Book! (yes you have 8 more to go)
And After purchasing your first book, congratulations, more things to do.

Monster Log:
i cant remember how many types of mob you need to kill on the log. But each mob is x10. Prolly 10 types which span across different regions.
If you manage to get bolders down in coerthas, you'll curse and swear during peak hours.
Because some of the mob of the same type only spawn 2. More than 5-7 players are haunting the area sharing between this 2 .
If those monster log are not enough for you,

Fate Log:
You still have 3 Fates to complete whereby some fates took 1-2hrs timer to spawn.

Leve Log:
Well after fate, things get easier for leves. Noone to compete and you can do it on ur own casual way.
But wait, it doesnt mean that you get the leve you want when u click on the levemete sergeants.
You need to take 1-2 leve to cycle to the leve you need sometimes.

Dungeon Log:
After Leves, Back to dungeons.
You have 3 dungeons to complete to finish the book.
1 High level dungeon, 1 mid and one low.

End of the day.
Oh wow, you've attained 1 stat!. Oh my god, i was on my computer at 3pm and now it's 9-10pm. Time to sleep.

After few weeks later, you finally upgraded to Animus and.... guess what ? This time it become more ridculous.

Animus to Novus (ilvl 100 to ilvl 110)
75 alexandrites with "materias" to upgrade. From Tier 1- 4.
Alexandrites is achievable by doing Expert DR daily from a quest.
Materia, go figure the price to fork into this .


UAT Weapon to Upgrade(Number 2) ilvl 110

Spam Cyrus Tower.
Untill you get one UAT(Unidentified Allaghan Tome) *Noone interested or bother looting most of the time*

After getting your UAT, grind dungeons till you get 10 rowena token.Each cost 130soldiery. If you have 0 soldiery, u need 2 weeks and more since 450soldier cap / week.

Gratz! you get your UAT weapon. But wait, more to come!. You need Sands of time to upgrade!

Allied Seals in exchange for Blood splattered log books with each costing 250 allied seals and for 3 then you exchange for one to upgrade.

Weekly Elite Mark = 50 allied seals reward ONLY if it's taken with the quest and it's on the elite mark list. Not any S rank will do.
S ranks were hard and they died pretty quick to players who pour all over from all cities to take a chances on it.
Players with bad graphic cards will have trouble displaying the boss because due to high peak hours , you only see players shooting some invisible objects and running around. You cant even target it or take your chance. And, they hit cleave dmg. Frontal will take dmg. Does hidding behind works ? No. Because tanks are grabbing hate all over 360 degrees and this will kill everything in it's path for melees if you solo. Worst of all, it hits like truck on tanks!

A Ranks is doable but then , 3-5 hrs per spawn and appears randomly. Fancy ?


High Allaghan weapon Route (Number 3) ilvl 115 .

Second coil of Bahamut resets every week. So if you fail to get pass each level, you are back to T6 every week.

T6 took literally weeks for players to graps. But after so many times of looking at the wrecked plant and wiping. You'll feel like burning every single Rafflesia in the world. Take note, it has eyes on it too.

T7 has more fun to go with. As usual weeks or months to learn the rotation. Kiters will occasionally die to Renauds 's Maul or get stoned by voices from healers accidentally. Yes healers are mostly dedicated voicers to stone renaud. Get the wrong timing, you'll have everyone petrified in no time. After 3-4 runs, players usually gets tired and starts making silly mistakes petrifying each other. Players would also occasionally trapped in the triangle of doom or Bermuda Triangle .

I have not tried T8 or T9 because i'm stucked at T7. What you wanted to reach is T9 which is where the weapons drop.



For the fancy poney mounts. I've tried 15-20 rounds of primal ex to see one dropping and power lotted by players.
If you are a tank, be glad that after 200 rounds of primal ex and you still dont get to lot any of the mounts, you'll be rewarded a Lion mount for Gladiator and Bear for Warrior. That's for the dedication you've spent for grinding through and only for tanks. Other's you can spend your life away grinding for nothing if your luck rots.

Anymore you still need to know ?

@darkskies

Hey, I really appreciate your wall'o-text, I have read every single word and I can feel your frustration. Thanks for being informative and helpful

I think it's only fair that I return at least the same amount of effort:

Personally, I am more casual type.
I don't ever feel the need to rush for super duper items or whatever, I just do whatever I feel like doing whenever I log in.

It can be any of the following:
1) Do whatever dungeon I feel like doing. Majority of the time, I am like you guys, hoping to get some item; but that's only like 60% of the time. The rest of the time, it's more like because the dungeon has nice music (like Praetorium/Sirius Tower/Ultima), or because it's fun (crystal tower, tonberry speedrun). Please remember this is back in Feb...I haven't go to any dungeon ever since.

2) Leveling other classes. I am playing all of them at my leisure pace, while majoring in WHM.

3) Do some crafting/gathering, craft some armors/cloth/whatever that I never see before, so that I can try it out on my character. I like to collect good-looking pieces, and try different combinations.

4) Go explore the map, take screenshots. I have been to many less-travelled places. I travelled very deep into Slyph forest even before the Slyph tribe quests are implemented. I traveled to very far end of every map; I found the giant crystal tower entrance before Crystal Tower was implemented. As I explore, I do some fishing whenever I find some nice spot. I have been to practically everywhere accessible when they are just placeholders for the future features.

5) Do some minion-hunting, I like to collect these.

6) I am pretty sure I visited and talked to every single NPC accessible, and I have already seen every single dialog between those npc-without-title-above-them (they will only say something when you get near them). I also noticed that some conversation will change as your character progresses through main story line, and some NPC will appear/disappear. First thing I do whenever I reach a new town, is to explore everything in it. Every NPC, every treasure box, every hidden door, everything. This is my habit of a really old-time RPG player, playing FFXIV as a mmo-RPG. Nowadays, new younger RPG "players" (not pointing at you) just go from one quest-icon to the next quest-icon, or follow online guide step-by-step, or "best/fastest way" without even bother to read through the text, and ignore everything else along the journey. Such a waste.

7) I would say, for about 10% of my gaming sessions (usually 1-2 hour on weekday, more on weekends), I did nothing but go to favorite spots, fooling around, watch the weather and daylight changes, hop into some FATE as it happens, listen to the background musics and take screenshot.

So, my character progress may be slow, but I do enjoy FFXIV very much everytime I login, and I haven't get burn out thus far. I am not trying to compete with anyone, there's no rush for me to gear-up. There's already much competition going on in real life, I play game to relax and have fun. FFXIV has really good graphic, superb music, imersive world, nice emotes, diverse clothing, etc etc etc...and with those new features such as housing/furniture, gardening, chocobo raising, new emotes and so on, I think I'll never run out of fun things to do in FFXIV for quite a long time. But I see you didn't mention any of these, so perhaps they are not your cup of tea.

I played many MMO since the time of UO. I understand player's frustration at the harsh grind, but usually that's exactly why the grind is made harsh: otherwise these players will accomplish all the "content" too quickly, and moved to other game because "nothing left to be done". There's simply no other way developers can keep up with the speed these players consume the content.

Furthermore, the more mmo you played, the more you will see this:
- developers will purposefully make the strongest item (say, ilv90) very hard to attain. But once new content or "stronger" item is released (say, ilv110), then those ilv90 will become easier to attain than before. This can be achieved by many methods, such as making dungeons easier, creating more sources/ways to obtain item, and so on.
- so, the cost you paid to obtain those items early, is much higher, than if you attempt them later. So, there's really no need to be in a rush to get them, unless you are trying to stay "competitive", which I am not sure if the "reward" is worth the effort. To each individual, the worth is different, everyone enjoys different things, so I am not judging anyone here.

Sometimes, when I am hunting for specific item/mount/minion or whatever, I do fall into the trap of unhappiness. I remember killing Ifrit for dunno-how-many-times to get that Ifrit Cane, only to be rolled by the other WHM/SCH. Not for the stat, coz I already own a better one; it's only because I like the appearance. But once I realize I am not enjoying doing it, I'll stop and go do other things in FFXIV, or stop playing FFXIV for the night, to re-adjust my "bearings" by watching movie or whatever. In the end, I obtained that Ifrit Cane during one of my runs where I am helping a FC member to finish its quest, I am not even thinking about getting that Ifrit Cane, lol. Such is the way things work, so...don't fall into the trap of unhappiness

Anyway, I understand different person enjoy different things, and things that I enjoy doing may not be enjoyable to others. It's just that, I am sensing some frustration in your post, so I am just trying to share with you about things you may have missed if you are too focused on gear-grinding. Please don't get burned out or otherwise we are loosing LYN population in FFXIV I need as many people playing as possible if I ever return, the more the merrier!

Thanks again, and sorry if I mistakenly think that you feel a bit frustrated (somehow the word choices in your post made me think so), ignore what I said if this is the case

Happy FFXIV-ing and best of luck in your huntings! May the RNG be with you

This post has been edited by unknowngst: Sep 10 2014, 11:54 PM

1) The good: Some of the new dungeons are pretty interesting (notably the story for Tam Tara HM, for me at least), Hildebrand quest, Hunt (you just need to do it at the right time to avoid the zerg, spend 2-3 hours on it), continuation of main story quests, new beast tribe quest (collect mounts and minions), Second Coil of Bahamut (some interesting fight in there), Frontline (if you like pvp), Leaviathan Extreme. Sightseeing log, Personal room in FC house, chocobo dye

The bad: Atma/Animus/Novus grind, it's bad if you do it hardcore, but casually it's not that bad, just go slow and easy. Ramuh extreme (coz it's an annoying fight lol, but hey at least they gonna buff the accessories)

2) 2.4 will be the end of coil, new primal extreme, continuation of main story quest, more Hilderbrand awesomeness and of course Ninja!

3) As usual there isn't anything you really need to buy, you can get all your gear using soldiery tomes with a weekly cap of 450, myth is uncapped. Fastest way to cap, is a mix of Hunt, Frontlines and daily expert roulette.

4) Both are good and annoying as heck in PVP, PVE both are needed, most group prefer a sch and whm combo. sch usually end up doing some dps for Second Coil of Bahamut

A few of my ex static resub to the game as well after the free login, with more things to do and catch up they are pretty much enjoying themselves.

A heads-up, EN speaking community is getting less in Masamune, most have move to Tonbery

I see that you are indeed patient enough to read through those words i wrote.
There shouldn't be any issue for you then.

I too came from the early age of mmo which is Ultima Online. Which is also where mmo shines at it's brightest at that time.

Well at least for iffrit cane , it wasnt as worse as mount drops.

For the allied seals, i would suggest you to do it daily.
For Daily hunt , you can earn 32seals.
Weekly hunt involves in killing only B rank hunt that respawn in 5secs after it's dead.
You're entitled to get 274 allied seals each week even u dont join groups doing S rank hunt.

You need a total of 3 weeks to get a sand of time to upgrade your UAT weapon if you undertake the daily and weekly hunt quest .
If you join hunts, you might get it in a day.

This will best be for your ilvl 110 weapon which is more easier to attain then doing Novus route.
However, relic will always have further upgrade route lvls in later patches.
I'm not sure for UAT weapons.

I'm playing ff14 till the end because this will be my last mmo. To me , i still like SE's mmo. It just that i'm not too happy with the grinding direction that SE has installed for us.

Work adults like us do not have much spare time grinding our day off. Being overly casual will just destroy our purpose of paying se for the game time money monthly. Being over indulge over the game will just waste our life totally in the game.

These 2 bullet-point are interesting...

I stopped at T5 back in Feb...didn't know it's coming to an end, I am expecting it will go realllllllllyyy deep, like probably all the way to 3.0, lol.

Why the movement to Tonberry though? Damn...Yoshi-P is playing in Masamune...
I think I'll still stay in Masamune...
Hmm...on second thought, let me look up on the transfer service I hope nothing will be lost!

i disagree, thou there is a myriad transfer, there also a myriad re-transfer from tonberry back to masamune, is just a panic driven also newbies do come to masamune as well. so really there no point arguing on masamune is getting deserted. and just because we dont normally use shout to talk.. thou that is also true to tonberry.. but yea PF is kinda one sided to JP most. because i think ppl are just that lazy to take initiative to do so.

hmm i also tot of replaying the game but will start a new character

problem is where to buy reload cards lol

ahhh
cant remember my security question i cant reset my password lmao

This post has been edited by kueks: Sep 13 2014, 05:17 PM

I play on both masamune and tonberry. And i have to say i've seen many familiar faces from masamune that is now in tonberry. And also, FATEs is pretty much lively on tonberry end. Not so much on masa. And tonberry PF filled with EN players is a nice plus against masa PF. getting pugs for scob in tonberry is also much easier for EN players. Unless you're in a static in masamune, u gonna have bad time looking for scob experience.