{"id":679,"date":"2022-02-19T15:47:57","date_gmt":"2022-02-19T20:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/?p=679"},"modified":"2022-02-19T15:48:00","modified_gmt":"2022-02-19T20:48:00","slug":"final-fantasy-xiv-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/2022\/02\/19\/final-fantasy-xiv-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Fantasy XIV, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is part 2 of my thoughts on Final Fantasy XIV. This time, I&#8217;ll be diving into the combat stuff and group content since that is the bulk of what most players will be doing. I say bulk because there are people that are in the game to hang out, get cool clothes or play Mahjong. Yes, there is a full mahjong here, Japanese style rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Know that I am coming into this from the perspective of someone doing old content grouped with players that have been doing them for years. I am not up to the current content so I don&#8217;t know what the current endgame is like. I&#8217;ll also be talking a bit about classes and how they work in Final Fantasy XIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Get Final Fantasy XIV <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finalfantasyxiv.com\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"THE PRIMALS from FINAL FANTASY XIV - Under the Weight Music Video\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2WR1-pds8qM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The basis of all combat is the classes, or jobs as they are called here. The jobs are all classics from other Final Fantasy games such as Black Mage, Dragoon, Summoner and more. Here, you are allowed to change your job whenever you want. All you need to do is swap weapons and the job stone. You will need to level all jobs separately, with one exception. In this way, Final Fantasy XIV does discourage the creation of alts (secondary characters) since not only will alts need to go through the entire quest line to unlock things, they also need to level up all the jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, there&#8217;s no need to level up what you don&#8217;t want to. If you want to stick with just one job, you can do that. Still, it&#8217;s fun to experiment and try other play styles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv6.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-674\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv6.png 960w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv6-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv6-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><figcaption>Riding around on the chocobo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This won&#8217;t be an in depth look at how MMORPG party dynamics work. Most of my thoughts here will be relating to Final Fantasy XIV. So let&#8217;s go into the group content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First up, dungeons. They are the most basic of group content, not counting the training stuff. Dungeons started off having branching ways to go and dead ends, but that wasn&#8217;t the way players wanted to play the game. In later dungeons, there is pretty much just one way to go. You pull a few packs of enemies, use area of effect spells on them and then move onto the boss. For the most part, people play that way because it&#8217;s efficient. It does feel like a bit of a shame since dungeons look pretty cool, and some of them have lore. Most of the time, you&#8217;ll be rushing through it, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">None of the dungeons I&#8217;ve come across are hard. Note that this is for me, a long time gamer and long time MMO gamer. I won&#8217;t say it&#8217;s easy for everyone, but it is designed so to be completed by people of various skill levels, so it won&#8217;t be too challenging for veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv7.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-675\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv7.png 960w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv7-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv7-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><figcaption>There is no I in teiam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are trials. You can think of trials like the big story bosses you come across in other Final Fantasy games. They are a step up in terms of music, mechanics and presentation. They are you and your friends in a Full Party taking on the boss in a simple arena. I find them fun. They&#8217;re faster than dungeons and you get to see more mechanics. There are harder versions of trials called Extremes that actually take coordination, but I haven&#8217;t done any Extremes, so I can&#8217;t say how hard they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The next kind of group content are Raids. They started off more like small dungeons meant for 8 people, but over time, they were shrunk down to just the bosses. So there isn&#8217;t that much of a difference between later later Raids and Trials. There are also harder versions of Raids called Savage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv8.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-676\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv8.png 960w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv8-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv8-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><figcaption>You get an axe to the face!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lastly, there are the Alliance Raids. These are for 24 people and some of the content I really like. Maybe it&#8217;s the thought that with more people, individual mistakes aren&#8217;t as apparent that makes them appealing. They have some cool boss and encounter designs as well. With so many players, they do more mechanics that split up people so groups are handling different parts of the encounter. There are a lot of mechanics to remember, though. Who knows how many I&#8217;ve managed to ignore because other people were doing them. They&#8217;re content I look forwards to the most in each expansion. There is no harder version of Alliance Raids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For all the group content, if you are a higher level than the content, your level will be decreased to match. This is both good and bad. It&#8217;s good because this allows newer players to experience content with older players. There will always be players doing all the content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bad part, though, is that whenever your level goes down, you start losing abilities. Well, I shouldn&#8217;t say bad. It&#8217;s annoying, but it might be necessary. A lot of jobs don&#8217;t start getting truly engaging until later levels, and when you get pulled into lower level content, you just can&#8217;t do a lot of the things you want to. This makes going back to older content feel bad at times, especially the really low level content where most jobs have only two or three abilities they really need to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In general, I feel some jobs take too long to get rolling. For example, I play a warrior. I don&#8217;t have the ability that lets me charge to enemies until 62! Even worse, my area-of-effect attacks cannot generate my job resource until an even higher level! It just makes jobs feel incomplete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv10.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-678\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv10.png 960w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv10-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv10-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><figcaption>Beings of darkness.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another example is the Black Mage. They have a weird leveling in that every so often, the optimal way to play completely changes. When you go back to lower level content, you&#8217;ll have to learn how to play the old way again, sometimes even needing to pull out abilities you took off your hotbar because they are no longer useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m not sure what the solution is since allowing people to keep there abilities even when going down to low level stuff would completely trivialize older content and make actual new players who don&#8217;t have those abilities feel bad. Perhaps just speeding up the rate at which classes feel complete would be good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then there is PVP (player vs player). I think PVP is kind of neat in the game. It&#8217;s nothing groundbreaking, and it&#8217;s rather simple. However, all stats are normalized in PVP and every class as a separate set of PVP actions meant for simplified combat. It&#8217;s fast paced and the large scale frontlines with 24 players per side require some coordination between the group to do well. PVP is also good experience for leveling up your jobs, so don&#8217;t dismiss it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For PVP, I strongly suggest you keybind the Target Closest Enemy to something easy to reach, otherwise targeting is going to get tough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" src=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv9.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-677\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv9.png 960w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv9-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/ffxiv9-768x432.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><figcaption>Lets relax in some Valentine fun.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overall, there is a lot to do in terms of group content. Every class is viable, and for the most part, people are pretty chill on there. Next time, I will talk about crafting, gathering and some other stuff about the game, so stay tuned!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Find Final Fantasy XIV at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finalfantasyxiv.com\/\">official website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is part 2 of my thoughts on Final Fantasy XIV. This time, I&#8217;ll be diving into the combat stuff and group content since that is the bulk of what most players will be doing. I say bulk because there are people that are in the game to hang out, get cool clothes or play [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vgreviews","category-videogames","tag-mmorpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}