excellent
So I’m tempted to get the leveling boosts on sale just to have them on hand. What do you guys think? One idea I had was boost to 70 so I can unlock red mage and then level that job normally. I figure I would have the same learning curve as I would leveling to 50 then trying it out.
It saves you a LOT of time. At half price, I think it's very much worth it. Your plan sounds good to me!
I personally bought dragoon, because it takes so much longer to grind up DPS jobs with the long queue times. Haven't really touched it yet, but I'm keen to poke around with it very soon.
but I'm keen to poke around with it very soon.
This is a very subtle but amazing pun.
Palace of the Dead is about the only way to power level DPS by yourself, and it’s very nice to have for sure.
I also think the plan’s a good idea, RDM’s designed to teach you the actions from 50 instead of lower levels, so it’s all pretty intuitive. Also verraise is great in higher level trials.
My last night in ShB included a farewell to SMN where I got Tower in the Alliance Roulette, and thus completed a final set of coins to upgrade one last piece of cryptlurker gear before we can just buy them (the jacket of scouting), an E5 where I was briefly the main tank twice, also on SMN, and as the cherry on top, a run through Amaurot with a first timer, which was honestly very cool.
Loving the countdown artwork, but they decided to just taunt me with the latest:
My glamazon is going to rock that coat so hard.
excellent
okay, that needs to be the new hero image.
Ahaha, I am honored!
In other news, prepare your butts for the first Endwalker dungeon. I was expecting a gradual ease-in because it's the start of a new expansion. I feel like they expect us to be really good by now so they're just throwing everything at us. I couldn't believe how many AOE markers there were! It was SO much fun.
While I wanted to play Sage the most, I was more interested in getting through the MSQ and making some gil from gathering/crafting in the new areas. As such, I continued playing the Red Mage I finished levelling moments before 6.0. I really love the changes. It still plays just how it used to, but with so much more flexibility and HUGE AOE. It feels so much more potent and active. It's easy enough to pick up, but there's definitely more intricacies to master.
This is such a nice way to evolve jobs, unlike WoW which I felt kept adding buttons "just because". So far, the jobs I've tinkered around with all seem like logical evolutions of their old self...More playable, slightly more options and player expression. It's a masterclass in MMO class design.
Right there with you on the RDM changes. It took until the first dungeon for it all to click, but I really like how it feels now, and I’m looking forward to getting the rest of the new abilities by 90. Now AOE damage feels just as fun as single target.
Went into the second dungeon completely blind, as did the rest of my PUG. Hahaha, that was funny. We wiped out spectacularly on the second boss because we didn't quite get a handle on the mechanics in time.
basically, there's a room-wide AoE that will kill you unless you step on the tile that makes you mini, and another one that suffocates you unless you step on the tile that turns you into a frog.
The learning curve is indeed steep, and since wikis and dungeon guides aren't out yet, you just gotta get good really fast.
Thinking of picking up Reaper, but want to get through MSQ first, then do some crafting. I also did a bunch of crafting for the Fashion Report, and those items sold like hotcakes, because nobody's bothering to craft those, but they're willing to pay for the convenience of snagging them off the Market Board to just swing by the Gold Saucer.
Just tried to log on three times to no avail. Error 2002, “The lobby server connection has encountered an error.” Guess I'll try again tomorrow. Dang.
Regarding the Ongoing Congestion Situation and Compensation
TLDR: 1 free week. 2002 errors due to amount of people queuing, but also packet loss from the login servers.
What I and many people have found is that IF you're able to get past a 2002 error, it often puts you back in the spot you were in when disconnected. Unfortunately this means you have to babysit the game while in queue, and understandably many aren't able to do this.
I've made it past the first 2 dungeons and the trial, and the story beats and revelations have me like this: :O
I've been hearing the story really picks up past the second dungeon.
So far, I'm finding it pretty slow. It's cozy, though, and has some interesting threads that I'm keen to follow up on. Perhaps not as immediately bombastic as ShB, but I don't have any complaints 
Yeah it indeed picks up a lot. Like someone slammed their foot on the accelerator.
I've only made it through the first dungeon, I've been splitting time doing some roulettes with a job or two. But I've come back with a few tales.
RPR is a lot of fun, but I wish I'd stop getting WoD. I haven't taken SGE into an actual duty yet, as I feel I need to acquaint myself with how it really works--it has a lot of abilities that interact with other abilities, and I failed my initial attempt at the class quest because I was fumbling for different spells.
My review of New SMN to my FC was "I'm still a beast!" It's a lot of fun, and while my only measure was the enmity ranking, I was still 2 or 3 on it. BLM is much less stressful, and Triple Cast was always the sizzling steak of its kit, with 2 charges it has been made Oscar, positively indulgent.
Lots of memery around DRK, much of which I think is overblown. Delirium, for example, I need to unlearn some bad button mashy habits (I was fitting 5 Bloodspillers into the window, but now it just grants 3 charges), but also learn to look for it sooner, as the reduction in cooldown is no joke.
Currently, the most dangerous place in the game is the Normal Raid roulette. I think one thing that the stat squish is revealing how lazy people got--I had an O12 get abandoned because of some pretty basic mechanics not being handled, and disappointingly, it seems to be my fellow tanks who aren't keeping their cool. Actually, I shouldn't say "fellow tanks," because I think these are insta-queue exploiters, and not my peers in any way, shape, or form. On Sunday, I joined a Seat of Sacrifice in progress at the checkpoint. I was told that the party hadn't been handling the splitting damage part correctly, but also that the tanks had been mucking things up and both had left. Then a second tank, PLD, joined, we started, pretty typical ups and downs, at least until the massive damage pools didn't get separated enough and took out both healers and the SMN @20%. The remaining DPS did what they could, but started to drop off from raid-wides, until somewhere in the 15-10% range, and then the PLD and I absolutely carried away the rest of the fight between the two of us. Felt pretty bad ass.
My last night in ShB included an E5 on SMN where I got to be the main tank twice, and as one final 80 dungeon roulette, an Amaurot with a first timer, which was very cool.
Oh gods, the stat squish is definitely making itself known. I've had Prae and Castrum MSQ roulette runs that have almost gone poorly because no one expects to actually heal much in those dungeons anymore.
As the tank mule in my party of three (I have all the classes fairly leveled, but PAL was my first and remains my highest), it is definitely interesting seeing people get used to Sage, and figuring out when/if I need to pop my Hallowed Ground with them.
However, when I am not tanking, it is mind-boggling to see who has experience with the role and not. The number of people I've seen recently just not use their defensive cooldowns makes me weep for the healers.
The queue being what it is, I've not made much progress. Unlocked all the 70 dungeons and the two raids from finishing Stormblood, but haven't advanced MSQ in at least a week.
Grateful for instant queueing, as leveling my tanks was my next order of business anyway (DRK is next in my list).
Yeah, I notice bad tanks a lot more frequently now that I've been tanking a lot more lately. It also helps me appreciate the good ones even more.
I mentioned it above, but so far the Red Mage changes feel really good. AOE stuff especially feels a lot more active, and being able to get your combo off more frequently feels great. I've started shuffling stuff around on my hotbar to account for certain abilities going from "occasionally used" to "frequently" used, and I may be tinkering with it for a while. I was surprised they added Sleep as a role action for all casters. Still not sure when that's actually useful, but maybe they'll be adding more things that benefit from it?
I've done all the dungeons so far with Trusts, which I really recommend doing this time around. The first trial was a lot of fun learning with everyone. In general the boss fights and the trial have a good amount of challenge, requiring a good amount of situational awareness for the edge of the arena as well as watching the boss itself for tells. This was true in Shadowbringers as well, so they're just doubling down on it. So far nothing as wacky as the Bozja/Zadnore Critical Engagements, but they certainly keep you on your toes.
I took some time off work and got about 4 days of playtime in, up through the level 87 dungeon. Progress will be slower until this weekend, I assume. Doing my best to avoid spoilers in the meantime, but I'm really eager to get back into it. The storytelling is fantastic so far, and just about all of my plot predictions have been hilariously incorrect up to this point.
I am level WHM 88. I have been in this game (on and off) since 1.0
And boy oh boy... what a game and what and an expansion Endwalker has been. I will definitely not spoil anything to anyone, but what a MASTERPIECE this is in so many levels.
From the music, to the incredible cutscenes and the storytelling.
If you are a JRPG fan, you MUST play this game IMMEDIATELY.
I am eager to finish the story, so that i can then start working on a more relaxed way on the other elements of the game.
Endwalker is doing so well that S-E has temporarily stopped selling FFXIV.
And according to Yoshi-P, we're getting another 14 days on top of the additional 7.
While I managed to get in last night for a bit, I've dialed back trying to login on weeknights. Having to babysit the queue for 60-90 minutes feels like a waste of an evening. Like I told my wife, I'm okay taking some days off for work and temporarily changing my routine for a few days to experience the excitement and hype of a new release. It's a tougher pill to swallow now that I've finished the story and am eager to start leveling other jobs, doing side quests, etc. I'm hopeful the patch next week will finally resolve the 2002 errors, but I'm skeptical.
It's a great problem for them to have, and I'm sure there are a lot of very stressed devs over at SE right now. For the near future I'll probably play other things during the week and save FF14 for weekends.
Yeah, I made an exception for a while and played in the mornings but now that I’m caught up with the MSQ I need to get back to my normal routine.
I've taken to queuing up an hour or so before I actually intend to play. Also, ironically, since the first emergency update, I've only seen one 2002, and it was when I set it and went to get some food on Saturday evening--naturally, it seemed to have happened about 15 minutes after I walked out the door. Otherwise, no issues.
I usually log in no later than 1pm EST on weekdays with minimal waiting, but now that I’m powering through crafting (gatherers are at 89-90), I’m going to back off and let other people get a chance to play.
Still having fun as a new player about to turn 40 but it’s starting to drag a little. Way too much exposition in some of the main quests. I think my biggest issue is the long queue times make it hard to keep up momentum.
Yeah the 2.0 stuff drags, and the long queues don't help there. The level 40ish quests start to pick up a good bit, but you may be outleveling the main story too. The worldbuilding and geopolitical stuff pay off eventually, though.
Yeah the 2.0 stuff drags, and the long queues don't help there. The level 40ish quests start to pick up a good bit, but you may be outleveling the main story too. The worldbuilding and geopolitical stuff pay off eventually, though.
Yes that's the case - I was about 34 before I could unlock my advanced job because I'd over-leveled. Good to hear there's a payoff versus just world building.
So that last zone was quite a thing.
I mean, Y'sh straight up told me how it would resolve and I was getting upset anyway.
Being a gamer who likes the simple things in life, is this game for me? What I mean is, I like what I consider "dad-builds". Diablo is great for this, Guild Wars 2 is great for this as well. Games where I don't have to memorize 15-20 key presses for a successful combat rotation (I'm looking at you Everquest!).
So that last zone was quite a thing.
Spoiler:I mean, Y'sh straight up told me how it would resolve and I was getting upset anyway.
The music is so well done there.
Being a gamer who likes the simple things in life, is this game for me? What I mean is, I like what I consider "dad-builds". Diablo is great for this, Guild Wars 2 is great for this as well. Games where I don't have to memorize 15-20 key presses for a successful combat rotation (I'm looking at you Everquest!).
I know some folks here have played Guild Wars 2 so maybe they can chip in here. That said, FF14 has a bunch of different jobs with varying complexity and APM, and since you can play all of them on one character, you can play around with a job to see if you like it. Most of them feel pretty active the higher level you go, but some, like Red Mage and Dancer, are overall more straightforward. I also thought Dragoon was pretty straightforward for a DPS job.
Tanks overall have a more straightforward rotation because they have to concentrate on more mechanics and defensive abilities. I think tanking is relatively relaxing compared to a lot of DPS jobs. Warrior just hits things and has really good self-healing, so it’s a good one to start with.
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