FFXIV: catch all

I like the idea of a recommendations page that pops up when you log in; however, it is only helpful if it it telling me something I don't know. I hit 47, I finished a story quest, and the next story quest doesn't pop up until 49. I mostly have finished my hunting log, and I was preparing to grind out the levels. However, after a internet search I found I had missed 3 breadcrumb quests inside Waking Sands. The recommendations page should be telling me about that!

Yes, grinding FATEs would be quicker to 50, but I like my quests.

Aristophan wrote:

I like the idea of a recommendations page that pops up when you log in; however, it is only helpful if it it telling me something I don't know. I hit 47, I finished a story quest, and the next story quest doesn't pop up until 49. I mostly have finished my hunting log, and I was preparing to grind out the levels. However, after a internet search I found I had missed 3 breadcrumb quests inside Waking Sands. The recommendations page should be telling me about that!

Yes, grinding FATEs would be quicker to 50, but I like my quests.

Then you're going to hate leveling up any other class. Grinding FATEs and leves to squeak by level 30 is boring as all hell.

sometimesdee wrote:
Aristophan wrote:

I like the idea of a recommendations page that pops up when you log in; however, it is only helpful if it it telling me something I don't know. I hit 47, I finished a story quest, and the next story quest doesn't pop up until 49. I mostly have finished my hunting log, and I was preparing to grind out the levels. However, after a internet search I found I had missed 3 breadcrumb quests inside Waking Sands. The recommendations page should be telling me about that!

Yes, grinding FATEs would be quicker to 50, but I like my quests.

Then you're going to hate leveling up any other class. Grinding FATEs and leves to squeak by level 30 is boring as all hell.

Oh I know all about that. I need to get THM up to get Swiftcast, but I'm not looking forward to it. I do enjoy running dungeons, though, and Fates are fine, but I do wish there were other ways.

I think I'm almost done with FF14. I'm liking the game but not loving it. My BLM is 46 and I loathe fate grinding. It's just so dull and a terrible way to make people level up. I know I can quest but it's a boatload slower. I wish quests and fate grinding were equal in xp so you can decide rather than realizing how much faster fate grinding is. There are too many other games out there right now to play a game I'm not really loving.

That being said, I do want to hit 50 so I can do all instances and story quests before I quit.

The Level 15 Arcanist quest - "Over The Rails." I feel like an idiot because there has to be something I'm missing. I keep failing the quest while on the boat. What strategy am I supposed to use?

Looks like curing the npc allies plays a significant role mixed in with some dps, youtube video for reference.

Oh yay, I finally got it, once I realized I had to play healer. I thought conjurers were the healing class. O_o

sometimesdee wrote:

Oh yay, I finally got it, once I realized I had to play healer. I thought conjurers were the healing class. O_o

Arcanist also leads to a healer job (scholar), and the base class has some healing ability. That particular fight took me two or three tries. I did find it fun
having to manage doing both dps and healing.

I actually beat that one by tanking. I was using my carbuncle and insta-casts to draw off mobs before the NPC could get to them. By doing that I was able to keep it so that only 1 or 2 mobs would be on the NPC while I burned down the rest. While I had to heal my pet I never healed the NPC. I'm glad it wasn't the case that there was only one right way to beat the scenario.

I did straight healing. I sent carbuncle into sic mode, then took turns spamming that one healing skill on everyone.

Naoki Yoshida's live producer's letter aired this morning regarding the 2.1 patch. He gave a date of Dec 17th for Japan. Pretty interesting stuff -- I'm really looking forward to the new hard-mode dungeons and Crystal Tower. Sounds like Bards aren't getting nerfed as much as I'd feared, so I might go back to my level 30 Bard job.

The beauty salon sounds nice, too! When I created my first character, I decided I didn't like her eye shadow color after about 10 minutes of playing, so I deleted her ... and couldn't get back on the server for two weeks. So I'm glad they're finally implementing this.

I'm disappointed that the Lightning Returns marketing tie-in event quests are level-gated content. Once again, Square-Enix manages to take two steps forward, one step back.

Yes, I still play, and like the game overall, but there are still many design decisions they make that just baffle me.

Yeah, I'm not yet at level 45, which I'll need to be to get the final Lightning content. Guess I have to do more work in the game between now and Dec. 9.

I played the Sunken Temple of Qarn last night. That dungeon was ridiculous and so hard to follow, especially the first and the final bosses. I hope the next dungeons aren't as annoying as all that.

I'm level 36 or 37 in my highest class at this point. I'm hoping I can at least get the third Lightning quest, but the fourth and final one isn't within my reach unless I want to drop everything else and FATE grind every evening between now and the 9th.

I just hit level 43 on my archer/bard. I wasn't planning on returning to my bard until I got the other classes up to 30, but hey, lemme get those levels done before December 9. Grind Lightning! (sounds dirty, no?)

I got a Bard and Paladin to 50. I got a few pieces of Darklight on my Paladin and started the Relic questline. I got really tired of running the same 2 dungeons to farm Mythology stones to finish my Darklight set so I'm pretty much just waiting for the patch to hit since there will be way more options at end game to gear up. I still love the game though.

I hit 50 on my Summoner, and I've completed the story. I'm really interested in alternate ways to get tomes. I get antsy when I start to see the grind lay bare.

KillTrash wrote:

I got a Bard and Paladin to 50. I got a few pieces of Darklight on my Paladin and started the Relic questline. I got really tired of running the same 2 dungeons to farm Mythology stones to finish my Darklight set so I'm pretty much just waiting for the patch to hit since there will be way more options at end game to gear up. I still love the game though.

I totally agree. I got my WHM up to 50 and got some pieces and I am up to Titan HM for the Relic... I am just like bleh about the same 2 dungeons. So I started leveling my Warrior. I got him up to like 38.

Two PUGs for Garuda and a whole lot of fail. The first time, we died so many times, my armor got down to 10% and we all decided to get on with our lives.

PUG#2: The healer hadn't researched the fight, and had major trouble getting behind the pillars in time.

*Sigh*

Now I seem to be stuck in the instance. Awesome!

update: 3rd PUG, all noobs.

Well, pray you never end up stuck with me in your group since I'll likely be a newbie as well

Farscry wrote:

Well, pray you never end up stuck with me in your group since I'll likely be a newbie as well ;)

I'd assume you would at least read up on it first!

I've been stuck on Titan HM for about six weeks now. I've run it at least 50 times -- usually not getting past the heart phase. I'm getting frustrated with it, but I've redirected my focus elsewhere. I've been gearing up my White Mage and leveling up a bunch of other classes. My White Mage has full Darklight now with a few pieces of Hero gear, and I've got Summoner/Scholar, Bard, and Black Mage to 30, Fisher to 27, and Pugilist to 15.

Hopefully, I can get past Titan before I get too frustrated and move on. I enjoy the game, but this has been a giant roadblock of pain and misery. I've now spent more time trying to beat Titan than I spent leveling up to 50 and getting to Titan.

Yeah the things with those fights is that the patterns were just so specific that even if everyone in the group had been briefed, read up, and watched some videos the battles were still too unforgiving and even a slight error of any one player resulting in death and often in turn a wipe. I don't know if they've added the larger scale raids yet but if they're going to be as strict about positioning and such in those as they are with smaller groups then that sounds fairly horrible.

That one has to run some instances dozens of times each to pay for even the lower end gear checks wasn't exactly fun either. On the other hand if they ever tone it down a good portion of their fan base would probably get upset at it being too easy or 'wow-ified'.

Another big thing with Titan is server lag. I couldn't tell you how many times I would get nailed by an AOE even though on my screen I was 20 feet away from the border of the AOE. So in those cases even if a player is doing exactly what they should be doing they can still die because your character's location on your screen is not what the server is seeing.

So far I've gotten my monk his +1 relic, a piece of AF+1 gloves and the rest in DL, except for the pants. I just can't bring myself to wear those pants...
I also got my warrior up to 50 this weekend with my bard, white mage, black mage, summoner and scholar in the early 30's with the gladiator and lancer in the mid 20's. I'm still having fun but I think I'm about done with Fate grinding. While it's awesome experience I don't feel like I'm actually playing my character. I'm really hoping the 2.1 update makes running dungeons as viable as Fate grinding for levelling additional jobs.

sometimesdee wrote:
Farscry wrote:

Well, pray you never end up stuck with me in your group since I'll likely be a newbie as well ;)

I'd assume you would at least read up on it first!

Absolutely; I've been doing that since Ifrit. However, experiencing it is quite different from reading/observing it. I made a lot of dumb mistakes on that dragon at the end of Brayflox's Longrun the first few times I ran it, for example.

This game is more challenging than the typical mmo anymore (which as I've said repeatedly, I actually do like), and groups have to be patient with players that aren't catching on as quickly as we'd like but are at least communicative and clearly putting in effort.

Farscry wrote:

Absolutely; I've been doing that since Ifrit. However, experiencing it is quite different from reading/observing it. I made a lot of dumb mistakes on that dragon at the end of Brayflox's Longrun the first few times I ran it, for example.

Yeah, reading about a dungeon is helpful but in no way prepared me for Qarn. It's one thing to read about how the DPS has to run to the adds and kill them, it's quite another thing when there are lasers everywhere and the boss is stomping around and dropping damage cones and you only have a few seconds to notice the add and sprint across the room.

Kehama wrote:

Another big thing with Titan is server lag. I couldn't tell you how many times I would get nailed by an AOE even though on my screen I was 20 feet away from the border of the AOE. So in those cases even if a player is doing exactly what they should be doing they can still die because your character's location on your screen is not what the server is seeing.

I've seen some interesting theories tested about this and one of them that seems pretty consistent is that Bard and a couple other jobs actually don't update your location on that map until you perform an action after moving. It's annoying to micromanage, but firing off something instant quickly after moving each time seemed to keep the problem from happening completely.

Bloo Driver wrote:

I've seen some interesting theories tested about this and one of them that seems pretty consistent is that Bard and a couple other jobs actually don't update your location on that map until you perform an action after moving. It's annoying to micromanage, but firing off something instant quickly after moving each time seemed to keep the problem from happening completely.

Wow, this would explain why I got killed by a bomb in Copperbell despite being halfway across the room from its red explodey zone.

In case anyone's interested in picking up the game, it's currently 50% off for US Thanksgiving.