**OFFICIAL** FFXIV:ARR Thread

[darkewaffle]

Just as a "for example" - last night I was 47 paladin. Did my Duty Roulette Low Level, got into Haukke Manor which went fine and cleared in about a half hour. Roulette completion was about 170k xp and at the same time I finished my "do 3 roulettes" challenge which granted another ~70k xp and my "give 5 commendations" challenge for ~45k xp. So all told, on top of the XP from the dungeon enemies itself I ended up going from a little over 47 to a sliver away from 48 in 30-40m simply by 'timing' them to complete together.

 

[tedrodai]

I really wish they would have prepped a healer and a tank for release alongside the Ninja (they said they'll have new ones ready for the expansion, but not now) -- or at least a tank, considering the shortage of them. But now 2k+ people per server are going to be leveling rogue/ninja at the same time. Queues are...well lets not think about that more than we have to.

Maybe they'll allow roulette bonuses more than once a day and/or give higher incentives for low level roulette in 2.4. Or maybe we can just do dungeons as 4x NIN.

 

[darkewaffle]

Another healer and tank won't really help anything aside from the short term burst of people actually levelling them and then abandoning them at 50. Players that don't want to tank aren't going to tank no matter what classes are available. The same probably holds true for healing but to a slightly lesser extent imo.

Also lol at some of the Novus effects people are showing off. I'm not feeling the yellow glows. I think I may never want to go past zenith for my Omnilex because it just gets uglier and won't go with my outfit nearly as well

 

[nageov3t]

I'm surprised an MMO hasn't tried to figure out how to make tanking as easy and stress-free as DPS'ing, given that across the board, in every MMO that I've played, tanking seems to be the least desirable role. or, hell, design encounters where you don't really need a tank.

 

[tedrodai]

You don't think the short term burst of people leveling tanks & healers would be desirable alongside the short term burst of people leveling NIN? That's my point.

And yeah that yellow glow is ... undesirable. At least it isn't the final upgrade for those folks, if they can handle it for 3-6 months or more.

 

[tedrodai]

hell, design encounters where you don't really need a tank

God, yes. I doubt this is in FFXIV's foreseeable future, but I agree with your sentiments completely.

 

[darkewaffle]

I'm surprised an MMO hasn't tried to figure out how to make tanking as easy and stress-free as DPS'ing, given that across the board, in every MMO that I've played, tanking seems to be the least desirable role. or, hell, design encounters where you don't really need a tank.

It can't really be that way though short of designing an encounter where enemies don't need to move, don't need stunned, don't spawn any additional enemies, etc.

Mechanically, there's nothing especially difficult or intimidating about playing a tank class in XIV at least. People just shy away from it because tanks more than any other role typically need to be aware of everything going on around them which people find stressful (it's the same reason some healers would say 'ranged dps only' for ifrit ex). Plus tanks are often responsible for stunning/silencing and are often looked to as the natural 'leader' of a group, controlling how quick to pull, how many, explaining mechanics as needed. Not to mention the same things that make people not want to be tanks are the same things that make some tanks want to tank.

Demon Wall is basically a tankless encounter, and it's ok for a change of pace but I wouldn't want to see a lot of it. Encounters like that start to creep into GW2 territory where you're no longer a party, but really just a group of people who happen to be in the same place at the same time. You're not working together so much as you just happen to be doing the same thing.

 

[tedrodai]

That is thinking inside the box. Demon wall is a tankless encounter these days, but it's a piss-poor example of one. It was always a dps race, but the tank actually had something to do before SE removed the gnat adds (part of other changes to make the dungeon an easy stepping stone in progression), and before people grossly outgeared the dungeon. Anyways, it wasn't designed as a tankless encounter, just an interesting change of pace. It was an interesting fight, at one point in time, and not tankless.

Group encounters designed as not requiring a tank with a little imagination could be just as interesting and require just as much teamwork as we have in vanilla MMO battles. They could make challenging fights that don't require healers or dps too. Tankless is only more attractive because of the simple reason that fewer people play that role.

 

[darkewaffle]

So Frontlines can evidently go up to 24v24v24. On one hand, neat, on the other... large scale PVP is almost always a boring zergfest. Not holding my breath over this one.

 

[nageov3t]

or you could just make tanking as basic as DPS'ing.

back in WoW, I actually enjoyed tanking in the Wrath days as a paladin when all tanking involved (on a 5-man level) was dropping consecrate and spamming your AoE attack, and all dungeons were pretty much just corridors with mobs.

 

[darkewaffle]

Flip side to that, tanking lost much of what made it interesting with the Wrath changes imo.

But I still don't think that would solve anything. Because even then the tanks in Naxx still had to make sure they walked Grobbulus just right, still had to dodge lava waves on Sartharion while making sure to not get the group cleaved/breathed/tail swiped and still have to handle tank swaps and adds and marking enemies for CC in dungeons and raids throughout the game, etc. I think it's those added 'responsibilities' that keep people away from tanking more than anything else.

 

[darkewaffle]

Q27: Will new beast tribe quests be added in patch 2.3?

A27: The only beast tribe remaining is the Ixali and this will be added in patch 2.35. The Ixali beast tribe quests will be a bit different from what you've seen up to this point and will have a focus on crafting. Completing all beast tribe quests will unlock a new quest.

Ooh, that sounds neat. However that last statement makes me think I might want to get around to actually working on some of them. I've made virtually no progress on beast tribes lol.

 

[PowerYoga]

tanking is hard because it requires the tank to lead. Screw up positioning? wipe. Forget to pop a cooldown? wipe. Fuck up silence/stun? wipe (usually). Not to mention tanking is boring in comparison to DPS. For tanks you rotate cooldowns and your combo is 1-2-3 and that's it. When you kill the boss it's because you did what you were supposed to, not because you were an awesome tank. You never get the "wow he's a great tank" feeling or "wow I tanked that boss really well".

With DPS you have big numbers at least and fun rotations (comparatively) to go through, and they handle a majority of the mechanics in bosses (for coil at least). Healers do as well to a lesser degree.

It's boring and thankless.

Ooh, that sounds neat. However that last statement makes me think I might want to get around to actually working on some of them. I've made virtually no progress on beast tribes lol.

I'm trudging through the sylph dailies. Their dailies are the worst, I hate them so much. here become invisible, rob 3 sylphs... turn invisible, do some other shit.... carry this pumpkin here... bah.

The courier and invisible quests are terrible since you have to restart them if you screw up. I'd much rather just kill something and be on my way...

 

[darkewaffle]

Got my BSM artisan tool, ARM tonight/this weekend and then..... CUL!

Also think I might purchase a small house just for gardening since personal housing still semi-distant and FC housing has, I believe, reached max depreciation (as of a few months ago actually). Should be able to recoup the 'startup costs' with some of the valuable gardening items without much trouble.

 

[tedrodai]

Grats . No small amount of effort there. I finally picked up my last 3 master books today...but there's a looooong way to go for those tools, heh.

 

[darkewaffle]

Down to CUL only left for my tools, but I'm a little bottlenecked by a lack of HQ cinnamon and noble grapes to make into vinegar lol.

Also purchased a cottage and my mandrake and azeyma roses are coming along dandy. Hopefully I get at least four Star Anise seeds and can pick up some Almond seeds from the AH to start a Jute x Mandrake loop in a couple weeks. It doesn't [at least a few months in at this point] have the same mystery to it that XI's gardening does, but at the same time it's much more 'reliable' - and thus, useful imo. Though as new seeds and items are added eventually they'll probably be able to refresh it and create new interbreeds and such, keeping it interesting. Also the animations for it are great - it's silly but I thought it was so neat when I went to 'tend' my plants while it was raining and instead of pulling out the watering can as per usual, I weeded them instead.

Just wish I could have more than one gardening patch, but if it goes well enough I might justify a second cottage at some point simply for another patch.

I hope they continue adding interesting secondary activities. Spinning off Chocobo Raising into Chocobo Digging or Racing could be fun and I'm still interested to see what becomes of the "Golden Saucer".

 

[tedrodai]

I finally cleared t7, but in a PUG because I couldn't make the static's schedule this week. The PUG cleared it with surprisingly little trouble. The static's not far from getting it I think, after about 10-12hrs of practice so far, but we gotta sharpen our overall awareness of shrieks/voices and tighten up positioning on the 1st add phase (which we've gotten past a lot but not consistently).

I got to thinking about how much I hate lockouts though. There's no telling how many 'friends' I've made for a time in this game, only to completely lose contact because you can only do end-game with 8 people. I really hope that gets addressed somehow...cause 3 months at a time with lockouts on only 1 end-game progression really sucks. Perhaps FC's can still have decent interaction in some cases, but I think it's really holding back the social aspect of the game.

 

[PowerYoga]

T7 is all about being aware of voices, shrieks and tightening up, or as our FC says it "tighten up the butthole".

After that its smooth sailing until the adds and archers pop, then you just manage voices and shrieks on top of that. I think turn 7 did a good job of ramping up mechanics and technicality. You get 1-2 simple mechanics that they layer more stuff on, eventually ending up with the boss doing all those things to you (petrifaction). Biggest problem is the positioning of the renaulds for us, they spawn in the weirdest fucking spots.

 

[tedrodai]

Yeah the fight is surprisingly easy once those things are taken care of. The first 3 adds are the hardest to deal with, so once you can manage them and the voices/shrieks, the renauds are really the only difficult thing about the fight.

edit: don't get me wrong, it can be trying and take a lot of practice to reach that point though XD

 

[darkewaffle]

Patch 2.3 'official trailer'

Should release in just about 2 weeks exactly.

Finally got all my artisan tools and last night harvested and planted my Jute seeds. Also working on sticking with the Beastmen quests this time around lol, I've put them off long enough and hopefully will have them pretty far along (maybe complete?) by the time Ixali come along.

 

[darkewaffle]

Some more 2.3 details regarding Moogle side-quest and the new "Hunt" activity.

I'm really hoping Hunts aren't total pushovers - at least for the 'elite' ones. But at the same time it might be hard to balance their difficulty for both ilvl110, ilvl55 players and everything in between.

 

[PowerYoga]

some beautiful gear for the hunts.

http://imgur.com/a/XCW6D

must have that mage outfit... >_>

 

[darkewaffle]

Desynth Preview

Classes level 30 or higher will have a skill level of at least one, which counts toward the combined 300 point maximum.

That's annoying. However being able to max 3 classes for Desynth is pretty reasonable imo. I'm curious what skill level actually does though.

 

[darkewaffle]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-near-future?p=2227278&viewfull=1#post2227278

What? Already? That's bizarre and seems a bit unnecessary unless they're somehow packaging 4* crafting in with the new recipes but that seems exceedingly unlikely.

 

[PowerYoga]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-near-future?p=2227278&viewfull=1#post2227278

What? Already? That's bizarre and seems a bit unnecessary unless they're somehow packaging 4* crafting in with the new recipes but that seems exceedingly unlikely.

if it's easier than picking 100 whatever HQ ores/logs i'll be pissed. But in a way I'm thinking it'll need the previous tool to craft/mine, which will be annoying as well but not unexpected. Then again, none of the crafted items are any good compared to raid drops anyway so I'm not in a hurry. There's nothing to spend gil on. Novus is only 3rd best and not worth the money/time ratio if you're raiding, and that seems to be the trend for the whole relic line.

/shrug