I quit WoW and played FFXIV for 100 days - Here's my thoughts so far 

Yo guys, I know the channel isn't yet up to speed but I wanted to post this one off the cuff to share my thoughts after 100+ play sessions. Once agian, this video is as much for me to look back on as it is for you guys! I hope you enjoy my blabbering. See you in the comments and the streams ❤

wow to FF to variety streamer pipeline is real.

Always nice to see the perspective of a really seasoned WoW player especially after really giving XIV such a thorough dive.

You are doing the exact right thing: having fun your own way. Immerse, experience, hear, feel, think.

15000+ hour wow player, played through a ban, private servers, new account, hardcore pvp and tons of raiding in wotlk...just gotten lost with wow over and over again. ff14 feels so inviting and the community of ff14 is so so considerate and thoughtful. You can tell how chill the player base is when a new player pops into the duty que and watches all the cutscenes and not a single complaint.

Heavansward is interesting, because to me it ages like a fine wine. Even ignoring the patches, the parts of the story that hit make up the back bone thematically in a way that just grows as you push through the game. If ARR is where you fall in love with the world, Hevansward ia where you fall in love with the storytelling. The patches help, but so does distance.

I’m also a 20 year wow vet that switched and I absolutely loved a realm reborn and I’m doing the game the same way you are doing it. msq then blues and raids and I’m also at the end of heavensward and I’ve been absolutely loving everything

Once Thordan has done his ultimate attack on normal, he's expended all his power and because he's not a combatant at all, he spends the last 10% just flailing pathetically (he's visibly winded and has a damage down debuff on him). The Thordan EX fight is a different story, you get the challenge you crave there, and is one of my favourite fights in the game.

The gripe you had about how the 3.0 bossfight felt anticlimatic due to the boss dying so fast even at minimum iLevel is due to how the job kits and stat numbers change every expansion, but they don’t adjust older content to compensate. There's often a power creep which causes current job kits to become overpowered against older content. Even older Ultimate fights (the hardest endgame content) become easier to clear with new expansions because of the changes to the stats and job kits. And not too long ago there was also an issue of the 6.0 final boss dying too fast because it already got powercrept by the latest gear so story newbies going in with endgame-kitted veterans see the boss HP go down unnaturally fast.

Regarding tab targeting, it is pretty bad if you have left it on default with no changes These changes can be made under Character Configuration and then Control Settings: Target Tab: I recommend changing the tab targeting to Type 2: Cone if you haven't already instead of Type 1: Ignore Depth Filters Tab: Change your target filter settings to aggroing enemies only when weapon is both drawn and sheathed. Hopefully that helps a little bit, I noticed when I changed those settings it brought it closer in line with how WoWs tab targeting feels but it definitely is not perfect

I left WoW after 19 years to play FF14, best decision of my life in mmo-gaming.

Thanks for the video, glad to hear your thoughts! I live in California so its challenging to catch your twitch streams, though I try! But its really nice to catch up on vods/hear your thoughts on youtube. I'm glad you like blind raiding - if you form your own static, you can continue to do that throughout your FFXIV raiding career (and play it any way you want, tbh, there will always be 7 other people who like the idea!) My son plays on a blind raid team, they just completed the latest raid tier. It's an extra challenge on top of already challenging content (I like my guides, please and thank you!) but its absolutely there for those who want it!

been loving the vods man, keep posting em! its fun to live vicariously through them. and yeah, i think HW gets its reputation of being amazing from the 3.1-3.3 story

Can't wait for him to reach the start of Stormblood and we get the 300 days video

Love the fresh opinions, the Haurchefant closure thing is totally valid, and everything in here is totally fine. Always be yourself and honest with the game and the community. Don't feel bad about not liking something you should, and vise versa.

Haurchefant broke me. He, Aymeric and Estinien are my boys (I'm an Elezen fan to the highest degree). My friends logged on just after i had run the dungeon and watched the cutscene and they could hear the emotion in my voice when I said hi. I actually love the Heavensward expansion, it's right up there for me. But that is mostly because it's all elves and dragons, I'm a very easy lady to please

Really love your vibe when talking about the game and I think your approach to playing is lovely and way closer to what I experienced on my first playthrough than when a streamer just hyperfocuses the msq and doesn't engage much beyond it. I think both you and viewers will get a lot more out of it that way. Also, love to see a fellow ARR appreciater :3 Only been watching some of the highlight vids but I might check out the stream sometime!

It's been a great journey watching you. I've even felt the urge to go back amd experience some content again and even try some I never did because of watching you go through it all. Keep it up and as long as your enjoying yourself... that's all that matters! 🙂

I came from 7 years of ESO. I started trial with AuRa man/Dragoon and ADD, so I kind of tried a bunch of stuff, crafted, fishing, etc. ESO story isn't front and center and actually isn't really required to enjoy the game. So when I finally realized I left the MSQ story sit, I finished all the way to Shadowbringers and waited for Endwalker to drop. I saw the male Viera and instantly bought and subscribed. I made a bunny boy ninja and ran through the game (to date) in one big gulp. It made more sense since I wasn't trying to remember who and what as much. ARR became where I really looked at the Scions since I knew where they would go and do. I felt more a part of the team Heavensward on and felt more of the emotions. I can't imagine trying to do this all with people watching and interacting. Glad you are having fun. One thing I wish I thought of when I started was leveling similar jobs together so I didn't have to hold onto or repurchase a ton of gear. Running Dancer, Machinist and Bard, swapping between to level was a blast and made it less grindy.

ARR isn't "bad", it's just a side effect of the development where they had to rebuild the game from the ground up and then buy time for the team to make Heavensward. That resulted in the very long patch cycle and quest marathon between ARR and HW. It gets slow at times but the entire thing is packed with very important world building information, some you don't even realize was set up until much farther down the road. I have never played a game with music I enjoyed more than 14. In ARR the cities were the only places with night themes, outside it was just the sound of the wind, bugs, and birds at night. Then in Heavensward Soken went to a light piano version of the day theme. Then later... he learned to weaponize it.

Having only found your channel and stream recently im loving how much your actually involved wifh the story vs some other content creators who will enjoy the story but they dont do the kind of discussions you will about things. Thank you for putting yourself out there and taking the chats abuse lol.

I haven’t had the opportunity to tune into the streams as much as I would want to Russ, but I am delighted to hear that you are still having a good time with the game, and have fostered a good way to experience more than purely the MSQ. I know raiding isn’t everyone’s jam, I am not usually one for doing blind savage myself, but that’s genuinely really nice to see that you’re having a nice time doing those things with your community. It makes me wish I took my time more myself, but two years ago I really didn’t know much about MMO’s in the first place so that’s just hindsight. I hope you continue your adventures of seeing all the raid tiers and their savage equivalents in the other expansions as well. Cheers

I've been popping in and out of your videos watching your journey. Take your time and enjoy it! I'm hoping in Dawntrail to find a new raid team that wants to go back and do everything from the beginning.

Oh my goodness, you have such an amazing adventure ahead of you =) I'm also currently replaying ARR on an alt, doing the entire thing over again =) There is stuff I wish I could do for the first time again, and I know all the people who have played it would be excited for you that you get to live it all for the first time =) Have fun! =)

That tier list is going to be spicy I hope you do one after every expansion

Great video and im happy you have been enjoying the game

Russ I’ve loved watching your stuff since you reacted to my friend Scien’s video! I totally get the Haurchefant closure piece, and I’m sorry your overall expectations + thoughts of ARR were lowered based on community interaction. It is only getting better though, and I’m so excited to see your impressions and feedback of the game moving forward!!

Nice, welcome to the community! I did the same back in 2021, came over to check it out and fell in love with the game, I had played WoW since 2006. This community is amazing. ♥

Oh your videos on the Bloody Banquet and The Vault are gonna be something alright!

Welcome to the game 😊 10 year XIV vet here. Subbed so I can watch your journey through this amazing game. Really excited to see your perspective through this story and raids 😁 Endwalker ties everything in the story together phenomenally, the trials/raids are a blast to play in, the music is gut wrenchingly beautiful, and now is perfect time to start since the new story about to begin 😁 enjoy!!

I think WoW players have an easier time getting through ARR (I personally enjoyed it too, but I have only been playing WoW since Cata - I was too young for the internet during Vanilla lol) because we're used to the typical MMO "go kill 10 bears" fetch quest. My friends who hated ARR have not played WoW or any other MMO - for them, ARR was the roadblock they had to skip in order to enjoy the game, and they did end up enjoying HW onward after I bought skips for them. I even paid for a month sub for one of them since they were questioning the monthly cost, and now they pay their sub every month just to stand around in Limsa and look pretty lol. Personally, the FFXIV story is still the best story I've ever read / watched in my life so far. That might be a stretch, but I think one of the reasons I love it so much is the journey. It's not only one expansion and move on (as you've probably already noticed ARR to HW), the story keeps going and evolving and the friends we've made - and lost - along the way are there with us

Great vid. Currently going through MSQ for the first time and it's a great experience.

If you haven't done the Tribes at all, they are frequently a good window into their zones as world building. The Vath in Dravania are my favorite in HW.

Ahh a fellow ARR enjoyer! ^^ I don't like telling sprouts to "bear with" It because it's so much rich lore being passed out that will shape a good bit of the story to come. I also agree that fantasy Catholics wasn't as peak as folks likely remember, but I don't touch that point unless they try arguing down ARR at me lol. Best of luck moving forward!

Alooo! As always really enjoyed your thoughts and progress on FFXIV. Thanks for sharing and looking forward to more of your progress and journey in FFXIV!

I've been playing since Endwalker released, having never played MMO's before. Two and a half years later, and there is still SO much content I haven't touched. I'm toying with starting the Alexander raids myself soon. Following your experience reminds me so much of my own, and there's so much joy there. I'm glad you're enjoying your experience.

Loving your content and journey! So, I think the combat bits stem from how jobs and fight design were then versus now. Jobs were far more technical and harder to execute properly, while the fights weren’t designed to be too difficult or as flashy. Stormblood and onward, it’s the opposite. Although Yoshi-P did say Dawntrail plans to kick it up a notch since some fights in Endwalker got a little too boring for lots of folks.

FFXIV is a great game because there's SO MUCH to do. Don't let anyone tell you how to play - go at your own pace, do whatever piques your interest and when you get bored, move on to something else. There's always something new just around the corner, and the MSQ is almost always pretty good and worth doing when you're not sure what to do next.

Definitely do another post expansion vid on your thoughts of Stormblood. A lot of contention is tossed at the next expansion on the list and would love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Many would argue that if Heavensward was the peak of storytelling, then Stormblood would be the valley. For context, think of HW compared to Wrath of the Lich King and Stormblood to Pandaria or BfA.

I remember really loving ARR, it was great to just explore the world and do whatever I wanted. I personally think that ARR struggle with pacing becasue some sections just really slowed down the pace to the point that the MSQ wasn't that interesting.

I love everything FFXIV! I loved ARR because I came from GW2, ESO, & WoW! I still love the other games too, but I only play FFXIV now! I think you will enjoy all of the rest of the content! I am stoked for Dawntrail & am leveling up my Ninja so I will have gear for Viper! Great vid, keep up the good work!

love to hear it, love to see wow player enjoy another mmorpg the same way most of them did back in the early days of wow, been playing ffxiv since the launch of 2.0 and hope to see some of yall in game !

Checked into your stream at the beginning of shadowlands and I feel like I really missed out on your FF journey. While I really enjoyed you as a person, I was just not into watching MMOs for a long time :D I hope you'll keep on doing well, you always seemed like a great guy and I will probably lurk from time to time :)

glad to know you're still enjoying the game! knowing that you like ARR, cant wait to hear your thoughts on the rest of the journey

Great video. Glad you're enjoying the game. If you haven't tried it yet, I would highly recommend trying controller play to see what it's like. It takes a bit of setup to properly optimise it, but the controller support is unmatched in the MMO space. Ultimately not trying to convert you, but it's an aspect that a lot of players overlook that deserves a proper look.

Take your time and enjoy the journey

The etiquette when a new tier of normal raids comes out is that everyone does them blind on the first day and everyone cooks - it's so much fun. With Savage raids, the world first teams will be fighting for a week or two to get through just like WoW, but most of the rank and file will only go into a party finder group blind for the first couple of tries - then we'll start looking at what little bits the guide channels have released if we do get stuck, (they're usually wrong for the first couple of hasty videos, so they've become their own meme.) You should absolutely be able to find others willing to current raid tier content blind in a static in the future. But no rush, take your time! Play the game the way you are having fun.

I've been running through a new character to prep for dawntrail. Just finished HW and getting into STB. I really appreciate your criticism of HW and honestly wouldn't have thought of it that way. I can definitely say after finishing HW, you're going to love the patch content. Even when I was synced for the final boss it was still a refreshing challenge. Cant wait till you get to run DSR after experiencing HW. 😎

I also want to say I love how FF treats keeping older content valid. It sucks that with WoW the old stuff essentially goes away. I really like how FF keeps it going. Just wish we kept our full kit when leveled down 😂

I really like this format of video 👌 It’s interesting how you talk about the honeymoon period, I always thought the honeymoon period was until the end of the MSQ. I guess it’s because you take the time to branch out onto other things and you go more into a daily routine.

Praise be to you for going through Alexander! Worth the time. If you want more insights into the story, I would like to recommend a portion of the story called "The Coils." It's about Bahamut. However, I would recommend you to do it UNSYNCHED. "Story mode" as it were. It was the dev's first try in making raid content, and they accidentally made it Savage Mode as the "normal". So... yeah. Get someone high level to carry you, and enjoy the story.

I hate that ARR gets such a bad rap compared to the other expansions, I love the world building of ARR and it's so necessary because all the other stuff in the game hits harder because of ARR and the world building the game did. I love all the expacs but ARR will always hold a special place in my heart.

The improvement to ARR in the form of cleaning up the quests def improved it. I played through it back in 2013, and i think why i enjoyed my time then was because it was new, I had to wait for the patches, and i got it in chunks, instead of having to play it straight through. I started playing 2 months after ARR released. I have fond memories of clearing coils back in the day, including my first Bahamut kill. As for Alex, I did it pre nerf to A3S, and was part of the static killer days, so i didnt do any of the savage alex til much later sadly. Reason, my static booted me, then fell apart weeks later due to A3S. Will say this be glad you don't have to deal with TP, and Accuracy rating. That added an extra level of difficulty to the fights that was annoying.

On the disappointing Thordan fight, that is unfortunately a problem the game severely suffers from for max expansion level content. SE simply does not tighten the ilvl requirement for max level duties and it results it everything falling over MUCH faster than it did when the content was fresh. There are mechanics in many alliance raids that players haven't seen for years for this very reason.

Been enjoying your journey bro!

I am glad you are enjoying the game!

I look forward to your enjoyment of Stormblood since most people dunk on it haha. I liked it just fine, it just has a lot to set up to start with. The Aetherochemical boss fight was actually reworked to be even HARDER pretty recently. I joined in 6.0 when things were first redone and the Aetherochemical fight was updated after I'd cleared it in MSQ. So, rest assured it's got even more of a difficulty gap between that and Thordan than the original. Glad you're enjoying the journey so far!

As a FF player from launch who has played most MMOs, I’m so glad you found Ff Russ! Welcome, take it at your own pace, find what you enjoy, and I hope you stay for a long long time!

I enjoyed base ARR myself. The patch content did drag on for me, but only because I was really excited to get to Ishgard in order to unlock the 3 jobs there. (This was before SB came free for the free trial peeps giving you access to jobs that unlocked in the major cities.) I may make a new character who purely tanks to play the story again and practice tanking, which is easily my least favorite role. I'm betting I glossed over some important lore in my haste.

Good video, bro. Interesting insights.

The whole Thordan getting killed too easily is a really valid comment. Unfortunately I don't think the devs can ever really do much to fix that kind of thing simply due to the vast difference in skills that jobs have nowadays including new jobs being added etc. It is honestly an amazing fight and I assume you might have tried the ex version blind at some point? First video I've watched of yours (but have subscribed and would love to check your stream out if I catch it at some point). I think that version of the fight might be able to give you a better 'epic' feeling. I think a combination of the new skills and the stat squish that the game got semi recently has probably impacted the old content a lot in general and unfortunately that might even carry over to some of the stormblood trials / raids in the future when you get to that part of the MSQ. I am genuinely glad you are loving the game though and I wish you the best in your journey through the MSQ and raids ^^

You can't expect a MSQ trial to be overly challenging; all players need to be able to clear it; not just the raiders. I believe you'll be much happier when you get to the extreme version of Thordan, especially if you do it blind and min I-level.

The "MSQ vampiring" will get real on Shadowbringers. You either get filtered by ARR or you become a walking advertisement. Congratulations on the journey. I think you will understand the "ARR underwhelming" feelings once you get to the end of Stormblood and finally into Shadowbringers and beyond, just because it gets *so much better*, that in comparison it makes ARR and HW for me to look bad, again, *in comparison*. And yeah, I also thought HW had a pretty slow start, but hey, it does build up eventually.

I played arr half a year before they cut some of it’s quest and I loved it. Also have you read some of the lines they removed in the localize version of ffxiv for haurchefant?

the game gets way better later on so i'm hyped to see you play it :D especially stuff like sephirot with the music :D

yeah. Thordan's fight has been effectively a cutscene since its inception. Hopefully they do something with it

It is always good to get an update. Do this at the end of each expansion.

Aloo! Glad to hear you've been enjoying yourself! As others have said, try not to let viewers set your expectations for the MSQ. Some folks may get a little weird if you don't react/feel the same way they do about characters and story beats, but I'd hate for them to tarnish your experience. It's much better to just be honest and enjoy yourself. I also strongly agree about FFXIV's tab-targetting, it's pretty crap compared to WoW. My workaround was to change [tab] to target nearest enemy, then [ctrl-tab] to cycle through nearby targets. That's what got me through frontlines.

I'm one of those weirdos who loved ARR and Stormblood. And only LIKED Heavensward. That said, I've loved every single minute of my Eozean journey, and I hope you do to!

The 3.X patches address most of your concerns with HW.

I've played WoW forever and still do. I stopped during shadowlands along with everyone else and played FF14. I loved it. The classes feel great, the story was amazing, and your character IS a protagonist. In WoW you are "hero" but one of millions. In FF14 you are the warrior of light, a scion, and the driving force of the story. You know there are others, but you make your choice (despite it not being impactful) and it felt good. In WoW, the main characters talk at you, but FF the main characters have to talk WITH you. The vibe of players in FF is far better than most players bases. WoW does a few things I like, multi spec classes, choices in style of gameplay, and personally I like m+. The combat feels way better in WoW. I love them both so much and they have what the other misses

If you have enjoyed all the lore about the Dragonsong War and everything that led up to it, then you should do the Scholasticate quest line if you haven't already. I also have to wonder when you mentioned how you like the zone music, how many people out there thought "Do you know Lahee?" ... wait until ShB, you'll know it and love it.

Yeah thordan in the msq is incredibly undertuned, but I hope you do the minstrels ballad! It's a great extreme battle and much more satisfying defeat for thordan.

I'm very interested to see your take of the game once you catch up and reach the endgame. What you think of FFXIV as someone who is caught up and playsit regurlarly. So I guess I'll get my answer in about 5 years when you've done all old content

Starting in Heavenward and going forward, they really split the difficulty in the trials between normal and extreme to try to keep the MSQ casual friendly. They don't have a good balance of difficulty in all of the 3.0 trials of HW, but they do start to get better in the post patch content and future expansions. Still, if you're ever unsatisfied with the final trial, highly recommend trying the extreme trials. They will get you that climatic final fight feeling, trust.

Been playing WoW from Vanilla to BFA. Switched to FF14 with me and my best friends and it is amazing. So far loving FF14 and excited for the new expansion! Thanks for the content!

thanks for sharing your experience! As someone who went into the game with zero expectations as well, I enjoyed ARR! Really not as bad as people say it is, and I played it when they didn't cut quests out. 😆

Churning Mists night theme is so underappreciated! It's more low-key than a lot of highly-regarded tracks. It became a favorite of mine upon first hearing it, and I've included it in all of my orchestrion playlists for years now. Zone themes with the same kind of vibe in later expansions: - Stormblood: The Lochs night theme, "Old Wounds" - Shadowbringers: Lakeland night theme, "Unchanging, Everchanging" - Endwalker: the song title is "Neath Dark Waters (Scions & Sinners)" but saying anything else about it would be spoilers ;) These are honestly my favorite pieces of music in the entire game.

Oh man I hope the character tier list becomes a recurring thing, I'd love to see how your opinions of the characters evolve after each expac and/or the patch content

Might want to do the extreme version of Thordan if you are itching for something a bit more involved

I've wasted a couple of subs trying to get into FFXIV, because it just seems so appealing, but i have such a strong aversion to MSQ's in general, that i just have come to terms that I'm not meant to play FFXIV. Still I'm happy to hear about your FFXIV journey :) these vids pop up in my recommendation a few times a year.

As part of the revamp and duty support additions, the final 3.0 dungeon had its content adjusted, particularly Lahabread/ Ascian Prime.

What data center and world are you on? Curious because I am finished with endwalker but in terms of doing most of the raids on savage I would be just as blind as yall and would love to help.

My friend who loved wow just got back in to ff and he's also become the walking meme to his friends. And I haven't said anything about it, but a few years ago he made fun out of me for the very same thing 🤣 I feel the same way about ARR as well. I really liked it the first time I played it. And I did play it before they cut quests, but it was all new to me, and I was new to mmos as well. And I love the sylphs too. So we're aligned there lol. I've only seen a few of your vids on youtube though as recommended ones. Your stream sounds fun, so I'll check it out. Some of the Alex savage raids are spicy.

A Realm Reborn isn't bad, its just the first book in a seven book long series(ARR is like The Way of Kings to the Stormlight Archives if you want an actual book comparison, though lol) Its the set up for the rest of the game, and yea it can be a drag to get through sometimes but a good story itself needs a good foundation to get going. Both ARR and Heavensward were expansions where the dev team were still trying to get their feet under them and you can really see that, especially playing later expansions. In Heavensward you can definitely see this within the savage raids, they were 100% trying to figure themselves out and the first tier nearly killed savage raiding for the rest of the game. (Living Liquid misses you) Stormblood is also a bit controversial because its not a bad expansion, its just not my favorite, and tends to be ehh to a number of people as well. It has some incredibly good parts to the main MSQ, the dungeons are also pretty good and IMO some of the best PATCH content in the game, but there are definitely sections that drag(really hard depending on if you like certain characters or not) and the BBEG of Stormblood is incredibly polarizing. You either like 'em or hate 'em and there's no real in between. Either way its been entertaining to watch your journey and hear your thoughts! Its always fun for us veterans to watch our little sprouts grow and journey through the game we all fell in love with so long ago. -And sometimes we just want to share the pain- (:

As for tab tageting it's really bad, but there's an option in the game to make it proximity based... The way it works by default is it targets things from left to right on your screen. Look into the settings, see if you like the alternative one more. I just kind of learned to right click on things instead.

While this is old, suggest checking out crafting/gathering for an end-game thing. It's basically a mini-game in itself. Figuring out what stats you need and working your way up through the gear sets. I did it end of heavensward, which was ideal since that stage of materia is easily obtainable and super-cheap. Recommend doing it once anyway, if only to understand how it works.

Heavensward was literally my lock on moment. Came back because a buddy basically bullied me into getting my account back up and running. The end of ARR was a shock to me, but the end of HW was literally the moment where I said, outloud in my discord chat, "I gotta leave comms, I wasn't ready for this moment." A certain cutscene before unlocking an instance hit different and I learned who Soken is.

Haven't been able to catch a stream since ultima weapon. Work changes. Hope to catch the Vods soon and get back to catching streams on (sigh😉) Twitch (sorry I'm a dirty YTer)). ARR can be slow like the first novel to a Trilogy or Pentalogy. But very much necessary.

Honestly, a lot of issues tend to get emphasized when you get to the endgame of the game. Honestly, I am glad that you are enjoying yourself as getting into the game and experiencing everything for the first time is a largely different experience compared to when you get to the endgame. In regards to gearing, it really sucks ass that every job is played on the same character because that means you have one lockout per character. This means you can't clear on alt jobs and get different gear for different jobs. As someone who cleared the raid tier week one, it took me around 9 and a half months to get BiS on every single job. That was logging on and doing raids every week and capping on tomestones and buying them. This was the bare minimum, and I even went through troubles of getting sub-optimal GCD speeds just to make it easier for this goal. It becomes a massive hinderance when you have Ultimates, because gearing on that is very strict. You won't meet DPS checks without BiS. So when it takes 4 months to get maybe two roles BiS, you are locked into those two roles and can't play whatever you want in that content. Another thing to talk about is that you are a streamer, and that you have a community to pick through. Most people will sit in PF for hours on hours and will never fill, or struggle to find MINE groups for content unless its peak hours on weekends, even on Aether. Its something that you may get to experience but something not all players get to have. That being said, its your thoughts on the game based on your experiences, its just something to keep in mind ig In regards to blind raiding, a vast majority of players do guides and make people do guides unless its like day 1 stuff. This is really only in like the early game of content, when you do get into the true endgame and not older MINE content it tends to be ALOT different than your experiences now. Keep this in mind as you get there. Blind Parties do exist, but realistically its very very very very very rare to find. Janky Mechs are def just ARR/HW. They tend to be like that just like you said.

One thing you have to remember too. A while back they reworked a lot of the earlier fights/dungeons to accomodate the trust systm. For example, you mentioned acian prime. That fight was a lot different before the rework. A lot more stuff involved. Mechanics not so simple. That’s just one example. A lot of the story fights they did that way because the trust system is very calculated. Almost dumbed down. A lot.

People put down Stormblood too, but it sets up so much. Don’t let people darken your opinion on the content. Best to ignore all that and decide for yourself.

I'm with you on that A Realm Reborn isn't bad, but I did also experience it pre-pruning, so everything, every absolute aspect between learning about Titan and fighting Titan, was just atrocious, but before Titan, and after Titan are great, because as you said, the base content does what it needs to do, lore building and so on. A Realm Reborn also has the advantage over all expansions in that there are so many dungeons and so many trials and then harder level 50 versions of dungeons alongside the extreme trials combined with the very cool raid. So many blue quests to make sure to unlock =)

Pretty cool to hear a more reserved take on base Heavensward story, and they echo a lot of the feelings I had as a sprout. I think now that I have played full MSQ I am a bit more forgiving in hindsight, but even still I had far more moments in heavensward story that made me frustrated than ARR. Where ARR follows a simple but consistent plot, HSW cannot stop interupting the main plot with side plots at the most jarring moments. Overall I would rate my HSW experience higher than ARR, but I enjoyed base 2.0 more than base 3.0 when I was playing it.

as someone who played ARR on release and have played thru the story again on xbox, i have to say the story still holds up. its a slow start with a lot of world building and character development but like a good book it gets better the more you read and the gameplay is the same... they have extremely tuned up the early game with changes to quests ang dungeons that were previously problematic for new players and there are reviewable tutorial pop ups for everything. this game is an experience worth having

There should be some things you can try to improve the tab targeting by shifting a few settings. Maybe you've tried already but if you haven't there are some guides that go through some ways you can tweak it.

“I haven’t cried yet… the game needs to try harder” Ishikawa smirking in the corner, “Hold my Saki” 😈

Oh my god yes. The tab targeting has driven me insane on so many occasions. Especially coming from WoW where it just "works" and taking that for granted, this game has been a nightmare on that end. I've spent so much time finding workarounds such as moving my camera so enemy nameplates aren't on-screen (which prevents that enemy from being tabbed to) but it's absurd I've even gotten to that point to begin with 😅

Stumbled across you by letting it autoplay from Xeems, but for PVP I highly recommend you bind target nearest to a hotkey, makes it so much easier.

Coming from someone a little more used to the game, my opinion is similar, I believe.. 1.the expectation thing always have a impact on the experience and HW without 3.1-3.3 is kinda "incomplete" 2. shortened ARR makes a lot of difference and those final Dungeons/Trial/Solo Duties were complete redone. So most of HW itself is older than current Ultima Weapon, Castrum, Prae, Lahabrea/Steps of Faith/Rhitahtyn sas Arvina solo... 3. the normal versions of Trials/Raids are easier and purposefully accessible, because they are associated with important story... (I also wish they were more "harder") On the other hand I love the difficulty level of Extremes, Savage... and most of other types of content that you haven't even tried yet.