I Did NOT Expect This! FFXIV's Biggest Problem Is Now A STRENGTH. 

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Liberals so stupid they don't understand air is made of 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, and 1% Hydrogen with 0.05% CO2. To top that off, 99.999999999% of 0.05% of CO2 comes from microorganisms. Every square inch of Earth is microorganisms. Why do you put food inside freezers? Cold temperatures prevent bacterial growth. Same thing with Earth. Temperatures go down, bacterial growth goes down than CO2 goes down and vice versa. Liberals soo stupid they don't understand what the sun is, which is a fusion reaction of two different isotopes of hydrogen tritium and deuterium overcoming nuclear bonds with gravity, which is extremely inefficient and causes temperature to change.

in my opinion as a very old player of Final Fantasy XIV, this is absolutely NOT the biggest problem of FFXIV.. its not really a problem at all, just a minor inconvenience. The real biggest problem in FFXIV right now is the fact that players who own houses in-game cannot take a break from the game for more than 44 days, because if you dont play for more than 45 days your house gets deleted and the plot goes up for sale 24 hours later. (this also means that any unique items that you have in the house like quest rewarded items from the monster hunter event will be gone forever, while general items will be stored in a recovery npc for you in the housing district) this basically forces all home owners in FFXIV to either stay subscribed for the rest of their lives, or take 44 day breaks in between subscriptions (which can get very stressful), or just quit the game altogether. we understand that the 45 day eviction notice is in the game to keep land hoarders (people who buy a dozen properties or more across multiple servers to sell them later at a marked increase) from hoarding too much, but the reality is that it hurts regular players a lot more than it hurts hoarders, we feel as if we're being held hostage at gunpoint because of it. And this is why the majority of the playerbase is so excited for the Island Sanctuary update (Endwalker 6.2) to come because we all hope it will be like the Instanced Housing system of games like Black Desert Online, so everyone can have a house in the game without any worry of losing it just because they wanna take a break from the game or hit hard times irl. that is the hope anyway... since square enix is being extremely tight lipped about any details regarding Island Sanctuary nobody is sure about anything so we're forced to speculate. Many Guilds including mine are hoping that it really is instanced player housing so a lot of the people who own houses in the game by themselves (personal houses instead of clan houses) might consider moving to their Island Sanctuary and relieve some of the strain and open up properties on the housing market in-game. edit: failing this, if square enix unfortunately decides not to make island sanctuary an instanced personal housing, then i hope at least that they decide to implement a feature to allow tenants of the home-owner to have the privilege to buy the home-owners property with consent from the home-owner if the tenant has been a resident and friend of the homeowner for at least 1 year. that way i can ask my brother to transfer his house to me since he doesnt wanna play the game anymore - all because he kept losing his will to keep playing while feeling like he was being forced to play just to keep the house.

That, I can't deny.

THE SONG OF HOPE IT DANCES ON THE WIND

HIGHERRRR OH HIGHERR

Hah! Acceptance, at long last!

What?

I will miss being able to fold the laundry during Prae, though.

I honestly enjoy the MSQ roulette now. Before I used to dred it but now it feels great to play through

Fun fact: I did a min-ilvl run of all three the weekend before the patch. All of those new mechanics? Some of them were in the original fights. We just never saw them. And the Gaius fight? With those Xs flying across the map? I was literally like "Emerald Weapon makes a lot more sense now."

When I saw the Xs in Prae, I had legit had a panic attack and was like “OMG ITS EMERALD AHHHH” then I realized it was MSQ roulette and felt stooooopid AF lmao. Same thing in Ultima when I saw he did the Diamond laser thing (the one the cleaves half of the platform).

Also, Citadel Buster HURTS. I stood in front of it as a joke thinking it wasn’t gonna do anything lmao

Blizzard: Lessons? What's that?

This is especially true for ARR because it's the foundation for the rest of the game. Glad to hear they're cleaning things up to get a better player experience.

They're planning to do reworks to Heavensward content too in the next patches. The ARR changes in 6.1 were just the first step.

@@warkiller And StB, just lesser changes.

I think the plan from the Live Letter was something like 2.0, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, one per patch with the goal being to basically make everything more consistent with how the game is designed now re: teleghraphs and fix some of the weird jank. I think Heavensward has a lot to work on in terms of markers and such, but with Stormblood we'll probably be good with just adding the new tankbuster markers and buffing up enemy health a bit.

varis has the same move on an EPIC scale-it’s pretty much the one big move that non-magic wielding Garleans can use and explains why they have such a gunblade fetish 👀 it is really cool to have bright that ability back retroactively, it looks cool and can be pretty intimidating

We now even show some regret at having voided the warranty on our good ole trusty magitek armor.

What would win, Magitek Armor or a standard Urbanmech

@@inkunzipaw6905 If it can do its beam cannon, If it cannot, 105mm auto cannons will redecorate the Magitech armor.

@@inkunzipaw6905 Depends, is the humble Urbie in its own environment? Or did it get dropped to fight in Carteneau?

Is there any way to replay Cape Westwind and Lahabrea with my main character? Or do I have to lvl an alt for it?

@@Tioko New game plus works, you have to do a number of quests beforehand though - stone vigil + Garuda are a couple from memory.

@@Tioko Should be available via the new game plus feature.

And now Ultima Weapon's music induces the proper dread it should. "Hey, you know that Plot Armor you had? Yeah, Lahabrea just shattered it. Good luck."

This is true. I finally got Ultima in roulette this week to finish gearing my healer at 60, and died first try. But it was fun going into the new fights blind with other players who were seeing them for the first time also. Tank, day 1 of the patch in Castrum - "Guess we actually have to fight everything?"

Pulling in people that don't like MMOs is what killed WoW. Let's hope this isn't a monkey paw scenario.

@@providencebreaker1558 the new player experience of WoW is hot garbage, Blizzard is the one that killed WoW not the players. they cater too much to the hard core MMO group these days.

@@WolfCoder agree you start with single target rotations while standing still and when you reach max lvl which takes maybe 48 hours first time, demanding dance dance revolution on steroids. and tbh most players wont ever get to raid since they need people that would teach them. I really can't think of a worse system off relying on youtube guides and dumb addons that tell you how to play, which tbh most people just wont do. why do you need anything outside of the game for content. I must say the story is okayish, nothing groundbreaking, but you can immediately see the different approach in shadowlands, A LOT of stopping and listening, like im not here to play a book, if i want a book, i read a book. same with bfa, was less annoying in legion and wod. just a lot of slow escorts and watch the dialogue prompts. i just started playing wow to get a character up for dragon flight, but man it sure has a lot of annoying shit. the fact you can't immediately mount in the maw or fly... i hate getting taken abillities for the sole reason of "user experience". every single expansion the same pathfinder bullshit.

@@user-sb7wj1vn4x The number one reason I don't like WoW is there's no journey, they keep streamlining the level up to max and its not satisfying. Why do they even have levels if the game is designed around gear grind and such?* FFXIV may not have points to spend in things or decisions of any kind beyond your rotations, but its got an epic journey and a story I can actually follow. WoW took a weed whacker to their plot and I have no idea whats going on, I kept having to read the wiki for backstory. The endgame is very unsatisfying and dull and everyone is toxic, and I have better ways of wasting my time. *To sell boosts yeah I know

@@WolfCoder funny that you mention it, i deleted another paragraph i wrote about the lvling. i typed that they could just do lvl 1-10 for shadowlands, and nothing of value was lost. the lvling is so unengaging anyway, so why do it. the story doesn't get told you see snippets from 1-50 deciding which expansion you want to play instead of leading the player through all the content, atleast for their first character. you don't even play a full expansion to get to lvl 50 i wasn't half way done with Warlord of Draenor before hitting 50 and I was only lvling with quests. i would play ff14 but i am someone who likes story told quick and mostly through the world around you (souls fan here btw). most of ff14 is delivered slow BUT right... which isn't my style. I also don't like the gameplay in terms of animations, GCD (Lvling), graphics. If they ever port ff14 to Luminous Engine, I would def main this game. the characters just feel so stiff you know, it looks unnatural in a bad way. Main problem are enemy attack's and your own here, but also cutscene movement. and just to clarify I played through ARR and starting of Heavensward before i paused because of reallife and lack of people to play with, but maybe i get back in again when they put out their overhaul.

Technically they have mechanics as well if you look at the old footages. They have a bunch of platforms for that in specific

Yup. But nobody ever sees those anymore... I got some friends into the game that were shocked that those platforms are actually part of a mechanic, and not just for decoration. Honestly, as much as I'm sick of seeing Crystal Tower, a remake would be amazing considering the quality of what they redid.

Really want to see Thordan given the same treatment as the Ultima Weapon as well. I can still remember how let-down I felt by his fight.

@@powerdj4590 try either of his 2 harder versions

Technically, you could make use of LB3 during Cape Westwind, since it's a 8 player trial. Making Castrum and Praetorium 4 players content do make that mandatory LB3 against Ultima Weapon much more special.

@@NibelungJ No way old Rhytathin lived long enough to charge your LB3 :P

@@Poldovico I haven't experienced it myself but back in the day this fight was not a meme and was actually challenging.

My headcanon is that LBs are actually just us flexing Dynamis (despite having no proper knowledge of it before 6.0, but that's why we as the WoL are special).

@@midoribookstore Pretty sure that's not just a headcanon.

This was my biggest complaint with Destiny 2 in particular. The main reason I left after Shadowkeep released was the fact that the game punished you for taking any time off. Coincidentally that was about the time I started playing FF14.

@@apdj94 D2 is a big offender for sure. You have to fight hard to resist the fomo and play healthily. They want you married to the game. I'd argue crafting helps (in making godrolls more achievable) but barely because the grind is unengaging and feels too long. But at least once you get the basic weapon crafted, it ensures you can have the godroll eventually if you want it. Somewhat better than "get it or you won't ever be able to".

@@apdj94 oh, and yeah, I gotta try FF14 one day...! If I only had more time.

100%

If only they wouldn't dumb down the game at every turn. Insulting my intelligence also isn't respecting my time.

As someone whonhas played since ARR Beta test, I assure you that I will not m8ss the old Copperbell, CM, Prae, or any other adjusted dungeon

I will miss the cannons in Stone Vigil.

@@ericbright1742 the cannons in the Stone Vigil hard are still there though :-))))))

Only thing I'll miss is being able to get like 80% of a level for an alt after queuing for MSQ and watching youtube for 40 minutes if I get prae. Minor issue though, as now I'm fine with any of the 3 new MSQ duties and still get a good chunk of EXP.

@@CetteSara they are, but will they be when 2.X dungeons get updated as well?

Perhaps in 7.0 you won't even be playing the old story, and they would have a brand new experience from level 1 till the new cap (but the old stuff would still be there if you want).

@@Vengir I wouldn't go that far. 2.0-6.0 is still an important story build and world build while also teaching all players all mechanics. With new-old dungeons you can see how they introduce ideas and markers that bloosom in Stormblood. In this regard, early leveles teching mechanics is more important than world building presented.

@@Vengir Unlikely, 2.0-6.0 is highly important for character development, world development, and conflict development. Everything in 7.0 and beyond is built on the foundation of 2.0-6.0. If we just have new players bypass that it will result in the WoW problem of them wondering who the hell these people acting like they have known you for a long time are.

@TankHunter687 To be fair, the phantasy star online games do it just fine, splitting up parts of their story into episodes. It's not impossible to do that, you just have to be clever about how you write the first chapter of the new story. Also, at some point the story is just going to be way too long to reasonably expect every new player to go through the whole thing. Cutting the story into separate parts on the main menu could actually help with that. No one is saying to get rid of part one, just that it would be nice to have the option to start at part 2 instead

@@TankHunter678 This might be the reason why the Unending Codex was added.

One of my favourite changes is in Brayflox, they completely redid the final boss room so that it makes sense that the dragon flew in there and you couldn't see it on your way. It used to just be a closed off cave with a tunnel entrance, now it has a giant hole in the side of the cave that opens out to the sky. Feels so much more alive.

True, much as I dislike them now, they were epic first time through. I wish that just as they can give a reward for running with a new person, they could let you skip cutscenes when there are no new people in a roulette. I want to get "That path leads to enervation and death" out of my brain. : )

@@alanogy then they would simply kick new people in the party so they can skip cutscenes or leave the group if they get a "new person in the group" message. take the hit and requeue. how do I know, thats what people would do back in the day. kick people watching the cutscenes or bully them into skipping.

Anf tbh in Praetorium, I'd watch the cutscene anyway so I can hear the "such devastation!" line. It's not the same otherwise.

@@alanogy tbf, they physically cant make acutscene "dynamicly" unskipable, they talked about it the engine uses a flag to determine if a cutscene is skipable or not, and that flag is hardcoded into the cutscene. So they would need 2 versions of the cutscene, and two "versions" of praetorium one that loads the skipabble one that dosnt

@@jimi_jams Also, seeing Garlic van Bread get buttered on the elevator is always a treat.

I'm split on it. Sure, it's more convenient and streamlined. But dunno, it's like every other dungeon now. Run through corridor while you spam skills. Spam skills at boss, repeat. At least there was a little of a mix-up with stuff like the Copperbell slime boss. Now it's all just the same formula as all the other dungeons and the differences might as well just be visual. Hard to not notice the formula if it becomes the only thing used. And many of the changes I don't understand. Like why remove the toxic pools from the dragon on Longstop?

This. It's nice doing Prae and Meridianum and having to like...*think.* Move around, avoid puddles, etc. It's not dogpile and demolish, and I love it.

It's a big team yet Yoshida gets all the credit?

@@MaakaSakuranbo Newbie tanks kept leaving the boss inside the pools and it was getting healed. They wanted something that doesn't affect the party as much if you mess up, and also has more direct visual feedback. That's my guess.

@@Junebug89 My guess is that their fancy new NPCs for Duty Support couldn't deal with it

too bad they neutered the layout, its far shorter now than it was before. they trimmed too much. snipping only the second upper path would have sufficed.

for me it was the stupid slow down slime "technically heavy, but you know" it was just an artificial time waster that just made playng feel worse. hindering player's control should only done for a specific effect, not just to make the dungeon take longer.

its not like they really added much to the dungeon other than frustration if everyone forgot to pick one up and the annoying sidetrack for the second circle. At least the small keys in Haukke Manor are a little bit of a puzzle with optional rooms to either search for the keys or open to look for extra chests. Though in the current state that more open-ended dungeon design generally just doesn't have much purpose since they removed some extra chests and regular enemies neither give exp nor drop loot anymore.

@Vryn Thorn what? You mean it's currently worse than before? If so, I disagree, I like it now and the no return is def apart of it. That alone makes it better imo

@@slanderpop8771 I have no idea how it's worse to this guy, it feels mostly the same, except for the missing lamps, but most people just tank and spank those anyways.

The fact that you don't have to use return at the end is simple the best addition ever. I remember in my sprout days being so confused for a couple of runs not knowing where everyone went. People telling me to use Return and me not knowing what return was cause I didn't see it on my skills book. That, is the best change they could do for new players

@@Kanamon22 That's why I used to tell sprouts to type /return in chat instead. That way even if they didn't know what they were doing, it still worked.

As a new player who did that dungeon for the first time a week ago, it took me a couple hours to realize that it is doing the same thing as the mobs outside the dungeon, just on a game scale. I thought I had to kill it, lol.

I liked the new mechanic with the tornadoes, kind of sad they removed the canon firing mechanic though. That one was always fun. I do think that overall, the changes are more consistent with later dungeons which is likely why they made the change.

Back when it was new, it was the only place for everyone to grind gear. And 99% of the people standing in town wore the same set of Darklight gear from there. That made a lot of players quit cuz they had to grind Prea for months.

@@kyo324 Um, no? It wasn't the only place you could grind Tomes. I ran Wanderer's Palace and Amdapor Keep way more often than Prea and Castrum. I'm also pretty sure there was more tome gear available than just the Darklight set. If I recall correctly, the Darklight set was bought with Philosophy Tomes, and the slightly fancier ilvl 90 Relic sets were bought with Tomestones of Mythology. The former might have been the only tomes during the first few weeks, but people were hardly standing around in Darklight sets for months.

This is the case with a lot of end content. They never sync your ilvl. The final boss of Stormblood was notorious for wiping parties. Sorta like Titania did in Shadowbringers. Leading those parties was a great way to farm player commendations :P

I don't personally agree with that take. Even back then with TP and all the other mechanics that were lost to time, dungeons like totorok always felt bad to me.

Yeah i completely agree with you, those things if you take into consideration made the experience of those dungeons seems really different.

Hell I USED the inn and not all the cut scenes were there originally! Honestly, that original experience made me never skip cutscenes ever again and oh so thankful for the duty system when I dont particularly want to dungeon super fast. I can rubber neck with NPCs and not inconvenience anyone.

Sounds great! I remember quitting GW2 in its first year because of all the content being temporary. And thus the game would have severe sustainability issues. Glad they really turned their project around and became one of the most sustainable MMOs out there. ESO, FF11, GW2 and RuneScape are some of the most sustainable MMOs out there. Not that FF14 does a bad job. For a vertical progressoin type of game they did pretty good.

GW2 still has... problems. It's super fun for me to play, sure. But it's not too fun to watch, it's hard to tell what's going on sometimes. (Especially in large open-world events.)

MSQ roulette is still there and won't be leaving.

Fighting Koschei with Ishgard in the distant background caught me off guard. There’s beauty in that setup.

Fairly true, but by the time the ARR patches finished the MSQ rou dungeons were already horrible out geared with Ironworks. There was a time when WW was truly a hard fight, a time before all the hard mode dungeons and extremes, before the combat re-balances and new classes and skills. A time when Techpoints and cross-classing mattered and you didn't always laugh at the lv 50 Lancer in a dungeon. A time when having BRDs for songs was a matter of progression and BLMs as mana batteries for topping off heals was thing. It's gone now, but it is nice to see the older content make strides to come back into the modern times.

CM and Prae were always roflstomped. And the only real mechanics you'd see would be nero's knockbacks and grabbing hands, and Gaius's randomly shooting x's and the bleed actually being something you'd consider avoiding. Consider. Not avoid, just consider it. They're WAY better fleshed out now.

@@Arrek8585 This is the correct take.

@@DracoSuave you were in too many farm parties. the people speed running with overpowered gear farming poetics. if you didnt have a group like that, they definitely werent faceroll. not the most difficult fights but they definitely werent roflstomped. I wish people wouldnt try to re-write early history with late history experience.

@@Shiirow The fact that you're talking about poetics farming in 2.0 tells me that you actually don't have the experience in 2.0 CM and Prae that you say you do. You farmed philos in CM, with speed run groups that leveraged cannons to AoE down everything *including the room just before Junius* and coordinated fire on her beck. You tank-sac-strat farmed myths in AK. (and hoped you didn't get walled by the Wall) And you did this in ilvl 45-60 gear. Do not speak to me of the old magic, for I was there.

It is a start. Some of Copperbell's boss mechanics do use the new tankbuster markers. I'd imagine 6.2 will carry on this work. Perhaps the post-ARR and early Heavensward content will be next.

I was quite happy with the changes to the mob spawns, I'm learning tanking and Stone Vigil feels less hellish as a new/inexperienced player now. That dungeon always felt very claustrophobic in general, the wandering packs were always way too squished together which lead to wipes more often than not when a random one joined your pull midway through. Some people definitely enjoyed the challenge (there are some in this comment section) but when you are still getting used to the game or a new role you don't want a sudden difficulty spike out of nowhere. That kind of difficulty should be preserved in the Hard versions of these ARR dungeons.

Personally I'm not opposed to the lesser amount of mobs in the dungeon, as it always made for a tough ride for any party that had a new tank or healer. What was frustrating about it in particular was that you couldn't see many of the wandering mobs from far away due to the many twists, turns, and rooms that were in the dungeon (not to mention the ice sprites which you have to already know the spawn location of), and wipes typically would happen when the tank either pulled too many on accident or the healer couldn't keep up with the tank. It still feels a little difficult now but more manageable for new players still getting used to the game.

@@zoruasnivy I agree, I’m an experienced healer (80+ whm and ast, I have yet to lvl them to 90) and even on good days, if a tank pulled too much, I struggled to keep up. Sch is my weakest and was much worse because you can’t use aetherflow in Stone Vigil and my fairy was always on cooldown

Oh don't worry I understand the problems, especially as a healer (just need to level AST back to 90), but I still feel that in some instances they went too far with watering down the fights. (Removing the "wandering monsters" is a good example of a positive change to help mitigate the problems the dungeon used to have.)

plus they were under a lot of pressure to get the rehauled game out. Toto-Rak was flat-out repurposed from 1.0 entirely with practically no layout changes (but most of the added complexity they were trying with the original stripped out). Obviously the rework is still largely based on those assets, but like with other dungeons they did this with, they cut out and/or added new stuff to actually create a new place, plus the added light sources etc give it a distinct atmosphere compared to the first couple of dungeons all being underground caves.

except the job designs are becoming worse and worse. each job becomes easier to play, without becoming harder to master (except black mage, because Yoshi mains that, just a fun coincidence) Hope they stop lowering the skill ceiling.

i would tend to agree with you there. the casual part of the playerbase would rather just play what they think is cool regardless and enjoy the ride, and the harder-content players would have jobs have unique functions and rotations with their quirks, to enjoy the challenge of it. what i wouldn't agree on, though, is that bursting people's bubble will solve the issue of square enix ignoring part of its playerbase.

generally when i had a tank in totorak and he was adamant on doing it his way, i let him do it his way while i went and grab a drink when he went the wrong way. can't be bothered to explore the dungeon for the 100th time and i get that new players want to explore, but in general, most are gonna be players who get it in roulette's, so it's in and out, no side tracking, just load in, do what needs to be done and get out.

Gonna need a few examples here bud, they ain't even in the patch notes.

Yeah, aside from some preliminary changes to stuff like Sohr Khai to make it possible for them to add trust support later(just removing ground aoes and disappearing floors), I don't think they touched a single post-prae dungeon, and gameplay wise, they didn't touch any non-msq stuff.

@@InsanityReborn The Royal Menagerie, for example, has a few new mechanics, and Sohr Khai; and some FC members mentioned a few others.

I sometimes remember some of my truly awful noob moments back when I first played WoW back at the tail end of WoD, where my first Paladin character I made I'd completed the quest that gives you a decent blue quality weapon (in fairness I was playing the free trial at the time, so my options for gear were admittedly somewhat restricted), and my dumb ass picked the Healing stat hammer instead of the Prot Pally stat hammer that would have actually helped me, given I was playing him as a Prot Paladin cause "Avengers Shield go brrrr" essentially.

Yeah that’s one thing people overlook. All of the changes in FFXIV are just tossed in with a patch. It’s not even the biggest selling point of the patch. Just a subtle, “Hey, we heard there was issues with this. So we changed it. We hope you enjoy the changes.” Blizzard only makes major changes with expansions and that ends up one of the major selling points of the expansion.

Man when are they gonna update squadrons.

@@CybersteelEx I hope they just update the AI and dungeon selection. I don't want them to phase out the rewards or the customized NPCs (which was rumored during a Live Letter).

Ho those queue were nightmarish xD Things are fine now though. Even the patch release didn't see gigantic queues.

Yeah, questing and story-pacing in ARR is god-awful. dungeons were never the problem with.

and people sometimes never figured out that it heals him. even though the game literally tells you it does. they're unfortunately catering to the lowest IQ player. when the game literally tells you "hey, uhm ... he's healing from being in his own poison field ... maybe ... i don't know ... move?" and you decide to ignore that ... my god.

I got lost in Sastasha.