Final Fantasy XIV

Biggest queue I've had so far is 42. Japanese servers sounding prettay good now, eh guys?

Still haven't tried logging in yet.

I only play once a week, with tonight being the night. We did manage to get in last Sunday, but had to start logging in about 4 hours before we were due to play.

We're about half way through Stormblood.

I'm finding Stormblood a bit of a slog, too many story similarities between characters and too many leaps of logic.

I thought Heavensward was better storytelling with a better rounded cast.

Almost at the end, though still have the patch quests to get through before Shadowbringers.

Getting into tanking a bit more now with my Dark Knight. Much prefer his circular area attack over Warrior's cone shaped one for aggroing mobs, and I just like the aesthetic of the giant two handed sword more (though have yet to find an armor set I really like). Also, the DRK story is something a bit different.

One realisation I've recently made that has helped me to enjoy the game more and feel less pressure is that since I'm not planning on doing any savage or ultimate content I really don't need to maximise my damage output and so can happily leave out the odd ability or two from my rotation. For example, with Red Mage I'm now not bothering with the verfire ready stuff that I kept fucking up before, but still feel like I'm doing a decent job with this role.

Am at around 300 hours now so this must be approaching my most played game ever.

So perhaps May

Blog update! I've just transferred over to Sophia on the Oceania server, and my connection is now "Excellent" rather than "Poor". Been hearing a lot about the importance of ping, let's see if I notice any difference. At least there are some other English speakers to play with now.

About a third of the way into Stormblood, took a couple of weeks off from the MSQ to level up some alt jobs and dip into the Alexander raids. Am now switching between DRK, RDM and SMN and am enjoying how all three play. So far Stormblood is alright, though probably not as good as Heavensward. The antagonists I've encountered up to this point (the viceroy woman and the dude with the big spiky hammer) are cartoonish and boring, and the story (Liberate Ala Mhigo! Oh, and Doma too!) is lacking the intrigue of HW. On the plus side, the level design continues to impress, particularly in the dungeons, and the underwater stuff is pretty cool. I've got the hang of glamour plates too, so am FINALLY happy with how my character looks.

Stormblood done. Just finished the Alexander raids too, which were great fun.

How friendly is this game to level and play through the story with others?

I had been playing SWTOR with a friend but we're at the point now where nearly every story mission is in a personal singer player instance, so it just feels like we're playing concurrent solo games for 70% of the time.

Reading about FFXIV it sounds like a fair bit of the leveling and story is focused on the individual, and has individual instances fairly often, so I'm not really sure if this would be much better for us.

When I played SWTOR I actually thought it was one of the few MMOs that handled playing with friends really well. Especially when it came to decisions in the story where you could pick different outcomes, and the system would randomly pick someone's choice to go with, much to my friend's chagrin.

Has that changed since it went F2P?

In terms of ff14, you're right, there are loads of personal instances, which are essentially single player story content, and yes it's very frustrating to have to leave the party to carry on the story (particularly because they'll still trigger the the cutscene, which will then fail to start the instance because you're still grouped 🤦‍♂️)

You do get regular dungeon instances and raids, especially if one if you is a healer, they will be your easy ticket into anything, and there is alot to be said for playing through a huge game like ff14 with a friend.

We've had lots of fun, and we've ended up doing a lot more social stuff than we would have playing alnoe. It's also been great as a regular way to keep in touch, as well as making the various lockdown relatively easy.

Tbh I don't actually think the story is that amazing, sure it has its moments, but its not something that really rivets me if I were playing alone.

Having a regular party has pushed me on through the dull bits, so I can enjoy the rest. I would have probably stopped playing by now if I had done it on my own.

Ahh that's interesting, changed quite a bit then, shame, as choice picking was really fun.

In FF, the story forces you into group instances quite regularly, so you'll have to play those whether you want to or not.

If one of you is not a healer (or tank to a lesser degree) you'll be in for some long wait times.

We only play a few hours a week (Sunday evening) and have felt like we've achieved loads in that time. When we're forced to solo, we just do the content simultaneously so we get all the reveals at the same time and can chat over mic. Plus keeping our playtime spread out has never left us feeling burnt out with it, and gives us plenty of time to do other stuff.

I picked this back up in the last couple of days after I think a 18 month break and I can’t remember what the hell is going on and we’ll… Everything really: Picking up the command bar again fairly quickly though so that’s the main thing I guess.. I’m really early on - still don’t ARR stuff and apparently off to prepare to fight titan. Guess it’s going to be a matter of clicking on everything and see what it does.

Ok getting back into this now and determined to push through the MSQ to the end of Endwalker. Currently going through the Stormblood patch quests. The writing is still pretty good but one thing is starting to irk me. Four different characters have now been killed only to reappear and be alive after all. Four! I really hope they don't keep doing this as it's lazy and just generally lowers the stakes.

I'm in a similar position, finished stormblood and done just a few quests of shadowbringers.

I think I will go back to previous trials and raids though as I have not finished alexander, omega and still have the last 2 bits of bahamut to do.

Such a vast game, so easy to get side tracked.