Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Shqueefa]

FFXIV's community feels like absolute shit to play the game with on average because these people don't value anyone's enjoyment but their own, these people practically enjoy wasting your time because "you don't pay my sub" tier arguments. It is just exhausting, I should want to enjoy playing with people in an MMO but I hate how coddled this community is and I wish Yoshi-P would just slap these retards. even though he never will for obvious reasons and while I understand his perspective I hate dealing with these people.

I always queue with a friend into expert roulette and never go by myself. This helps when running into said shitters you talked that do not respect anyone's time and turn into a rapid faggots when asked a question or given advice. If you're unable to interact with other people at a basic level of communication, unable to hit literally a total of 4 to 5 buttons at level 90 or both. You're going to learn the hard way when you're met with a black screen right before the last dungeon boss that sends you back to your limsa or quicksand ERP corner due to my friend and I kicking your obnoxious ass.

 

[ZMOT]

I think the combat is extremely bad because it is literal 1 > 2 spam for the first 15 hours, then it is 1 > 2 > 3 spam, then after maybe 15 more hours you get a few off gcd weaves and an actual mechanic maybe. Considering people like to pitch FFXIV as having good gameplay, dealing with this for the next 60+ something hours probably makes that claim feel like a lie alongside the actual combat being a joke due to bad number scaling making easy fights even easier. So you are reading a questionable writing quality novel that feels like it goes nowhere, then you do a joke boss fight that dies in 2 minutes, then you go back to reading until you fight 3 dudes who die in 5 seconds then back to the novel.

outside the post-launch MSQs you get distracted by other stuff: you still level, unlock stuff etc., which all completely stalls and you mostly run around listening to dialog or collecting stuff, until you get into the content for the next expansion.

plus as you mentioned even if you had all the skills everything simply dies to fast (eso has the same problem for overland content people are constantly whining about, to the point the devs had to come out and say this will likely never change because according to their stats most people like it that way, and last time I played FF14 overland was pretty pointless and filler anyway).

Oh and also the Castrum/Praetorium...exist. I can't wait to see them fix those shitboxes of dated design.

think they're changing it now. one of the reasons ff14 annoyed me quite a bit was that they treat every expansion like blizzard, once it's done that's it, you're supposed to grind through the new shit, doesn't matter how good or bad the old stuff is or is in need of an update. adventurer squadron has been in the game for how long, but yet you could never take them in there?

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

outside the post-launch MSQs you get distracted by other stuff: you still level, unlock stuff etc., which all completely stalls and you mostly run around listening to dialog or collecting stuff, until you get into the content for the next expansion.

plus as you mentioned even if you had all the skills everything simply dies to fast (eso has the same problem for overland content people are constantly whining about, to the point the devs had to come out and say this will likely never change because according to their stats most people like it that way, and last time I played FF14 overland was pretty pointless and filler anyway).


think they're changing it now. one of the reasons ff14 annoyed me quite a bit was that they treat every expansion like blizzard, once it's done that's it, you're supposed to grind through the new shit, doesn't matter how good or bad the old stuff is or is in need of an update. adventurer squadron has been in the game for how long, but yet you could never take them in there?

I think the combat would be more tolerable if the baseline kits were at least what they were like back in 2013 where you had roughly what we have at level 70 or so (as ARR had a bunch of useless fluff skills that do almost nothing). If FFXIV needs to do anything to fix this they need to use traits more and introduce more mechanics earlier and then reskin them to their current forms with better animations, tighter optimization windows, lower CDs, bigger numbers, etc. Just introduce the mechanic before Stormblood would be great. Machinist sort of does this as you get Hot Shot and Heat Blast systems really early, so you got an okay feel for what the job will be doing later on with CD based GCDs and the heat/battery systems.

One example I always talk about with anyone I have this conversation with is Dragoon's Nastrond and Blood of the Dragon systems. If say at level 30-50 you gained something that lets you use a more mundane looking Nastrond, that takes more jumps to be active but is still an off gcd weave you do after using jumps a number of times. So when you get to big boy Nastrond and it goes from say a more mundane big thrust to the giant dragon laser, and it takes one less jump to activate it feels like an actual upgrade from something you got 50 hours ago and you have an understanding what Nastrond does. Now Dragoon has a something of a real mechanic before fucking Stormblood. The early levels almost teach you wrong because you get your real big boy tools so damn late and you're just expected to figure it out.

People can say whatever they want about Summoner's rework being boring at level cap, at least you get a pretty solid idea of what your class does early on when they introduce the 3 different carbuncles that later become Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan. Though I'd like them to go a step further and introduce something akin to Dreadwyrm Trance earlier.

Also yes Praetorium and Castrum is changing finally, Castrum I believe will be a solo instance and Praetorium is a 4 man dungeon where Ultima Weapon will be its own boss and Lahabrea's fight is a solo fight. So Praetorium will take maybe 20-30 minutes instead of 45-50 and a good portion of the cutscenes at the end should offloaded to the singular player that needs to see them/skip them.

 

[Fcret]

Cape Westwind is becoming a solo duty. Castrum Meridianum and Castrum Praetorium will be 4-man dungeons. Ultima Weapon will be removed from Praetorium and retooled as a 4-man trial. Lahabrea will be a solo duty. All of the group content will be trust-enabled.

My only real gripe with this is that ending Praetorium with Nero doesn't seem like it'll feel that great thematically. But maybe if they tweak his fight a little and make him less of a pushover, it'll be fine.

 

[Kane Lives]

Cape Westwind is becoming a solo duty. Castrum Meridianum and Castrum Praetorium will be 4-man dungeons. Ultima Weapon will be removed from Praetorium and retooled as a 4-man trial. Lahabrea will be a solo duty. All of the group content will be trust-enabled.

My only real gripe with this is that ending Praetorium with Nero doesn't seem like it'll feel that great thematically. But maybe if they tweak his fight a little and make him less of a pushover, it'll be fine.

Wasn't there an elevator fight with Gaius in between too? Is that getting removed?

 

[Well Intentioned]

Wasn't there an elevator fight with Gaius in between too? Is that getting removed?

The first bit of Prae is up to Gaius, not Nero.

 

[Gravemind]

Also yes Praetorium and Castrum is changing finally, Castrum I believe will be a solo instance and Praetorium is a 4 man dungeon where Ultima Weapon will be its own boss and Lahabrea's fight is a solo fight. So Praetorium will take maybe 20-30 minutes instead of 45-50 and a good portion of the cutscenes at the end should offloaded to the singular player that needs to see them/skip them.

Castrum and Praetorium are being turned into 4-man dungeons, Ultima Weapon will be its own trial, and the final Lahabrea fight is being turned into a solo instanced duty.

Wasn't there an elevator fight with Gaius in between too? Is that getting removed?

If my guesses are correct, I'm pretty sure Praetorium might just end after the first Gaius fight, and then we'll be spit out into an instanced area right outside the hangar door after the dungeon to queue into Ultima Weapon. And a similar sort of story for the transition from Ultima Weapon to Lahabrea.

Side note: Anyone remember when I more or less proposed exactly these changes last September?

Also, no, making Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium solo duties is, to put it bluntly, a stupid idea. There's nothing else in the game, from a finale standpoint, that works like that. The best way to "fix" both dungeons is to make them fall in line with what the rest of the game's finales look like, and I actually have a decent image of what that could look like:

-Change Castrum and Praetorium to be 4-man dungeons instead of 8-man dungeons and leave ALMOST everything else the same about both of them. Considering how the 8-man comp has always been a curbstomp, I'm confident that the dungeons could be just as easily tackled by 4 people instead of 8. That way, you also satisfy the grievance that faggot in the video expressed with "making sure you feel like you're getting the most out of your playtime."
–End Praetorium after the Gaius fight.
–Make the final Ultima Weapon/Lahabrea fight into a separate, 8-man trial. Change that small area with the door to Ultima Weapon's hangar into an "open world" instanced area (for you to be ejected into after a first time clear of Praetorium) with a teleport that unlocks the trial. Basically make it so that it's functionally the same as Heavensward's, Stormblood's, and Shadowbringer's finales, where they do similar things leading into the "final" fight.

 

[Fcret]

Wasn't there an elevator fight with Gaius in between too? Is that getting removed?

Oh yeah, you're right. TBH they should just remove it since there's basically no mechanics.

 

[HexFag]

I'm going to miss Cape Westwind solely for stupid shit like this

Everything else I could live without, I guess. I wish they reworked other outdated features of ARR first but it is what it is.

 

[Gravemind]

Oh yeah, you're right. TBH they should just remove it since there's basically no mechanics.

There's "move out of the AoEs" and slight babby tankbusters. The thing is, they have almost never been a threat, even back in ARR, and, as such, have always been completely disregarded.

 

[Tachibana]

The very foundation of just playing the game is obnoxious because if you've been here long enough and you aren't just some uber positive shitter, I think you'll just feel like everyone is just wasting your time because they can't be fucked to press more than 5 buttons and they enjoy having that "freedom".

With the end of this raid tier, I'm taking an extended break from raiding and unsubbing from the game. It's not just people refusing to play the game, it is in equal parts the egos of players.

People will chronically waste your time in raids. Either through raid recruitment, starting drama in your group, or wiping the group over trying to parse or not understanding the content. You spend hours not playing the game.

Raiding is interesting in theory. In practice, this community makes it messy.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

With the end of this raid tier, I'm taking an extended break from raiding and unsubbing from the game. It's not just people refusing to play the game, it is in equal parts the egos of players.

People will chronically waste your time in raids. Either through raid recruitment, starting drama in your group, or wiping the group over trying to parse or not understanding the content. You spend hours not playing the game.

Raiding is interesting in theory. In practice, this community makes it messy.

Yeah I basically took an extended break a couple months ago and just played other games after I got tired of doing expert roulette. If I'm thankful for anything it is that unless you want to try hard in raids, you can pretty easily just step away from the game for months and not really miss a ton of stuff.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

I'm going to miss Cape Westwind solely for stupid shit like this
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ar4ZjQeKNZYEverything else I could live without, I guess. I wish they reworked other outdated features of ARR first but it is what it is.

I will miss trolling the sprouts by placing markers on the floor and telling people to do random nonsense.

 

[Tachibana]

Yeah I basically took an extended break a couple months ago and just played other games after I got tired of doing expert roulette. If I'm thankful for anything it is that unless you want to try hard in raids, you can pretty easily just step away from the game for months and not really miss a ton of stuff.

The game doesn't have much to interest me beyond the story, the trials and the ex trial if I don't raid. I might resub on a later patch and I can buy the latest crafted gear.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

The game doesn't have much to interest me beyond the story, the trials and the ex trial if I don't raid. I might resub on a later patch and I can buy the latest crafted gear.

I did that after 4.0 and came back about 1-2 months before Shadowbringers to binge the story and play a little bit of catch up. It is very easy to come back very late into the expansion if you got a decent bit of gil to just buy crafted gear as the market goes into freefall during the pre-expansion lull, and you don't even really need tome gear either as the new expansion will give you enough gear to get by (and poetics just buys you the weekly tome gear for the X.4 raid cycle anyway). So if you think that is best for what you want out of the game, I can pretty much assure you it is really easy and stress free to do that.

Hell I didn't even do the optional Stormblood trials until just before Endwalker came out, and it was easy to get that experience and it made the story a little bit easier to follow because I binged it over a weekend instead of waiting more than a year for it to conclude.

 

[Fcret]

The game doesn't have much to interest me beyond the story, the trials and the ex trial if I don't raid. I might resub on a later patch and I can buy the latest crafted gear.

Yeah if you don't have anything to do then taking a break is good. I always find myself enjoying the game much more after taking a break for a few months. I might dip for a month or two myself once I'm done leveling everything to 90.

 

[Vapewizard]

I like how there's genderspecials on twitter creaming themselves over new viera name lore, pretending like they're some society where they don't know what gender is even though the Viera obviously know who is allowed to live in the villages or not once the kids hit puberty.

 

[CptnSnshn]

I like how there's genderspecials on twitter creaming themselves over new viera name lore, pretending like they're some society where they don't know what gender is even though the Viera obviously know who is allowed to live in the villages or not once the kids hit puberty.

Gas all bun boy and cat boy players they're the scum of the earth.

 

[CptnSnshn]

Lmao I got a warning for saying "Stigma Balls" at the start of Stigma Dreamscape and literally nothing else in the hour I played.

 

[Cantercoin]

The letter from the producer is gonna stream on April 1st focusing on patch 6.1