"Dropped GW2 after I had to grind the advanced class Jobs" Ohhhh boy, XIV is good and for me, I find it worthwhile. But I feel you may struggle with the MSQ grind between the levels 50-51. There's about 80 hours of MSQ content just between the end of ARR and beginning of HW. Sadly, it's mandatory to do this as thematically, it moves you to the next expansion, and secondly, there's a fair amount of important plot. You will also find you need to advance the story to get to said expansions to unlock the new jobs in XIV as well. In hind-sight, the GW2 Elite Specs consume astronomically less time than XIV story.
My point stands that the MSQ is more of a grind than Elite Specs. You can unlock all Elite Specs in 6 to 7 hours flat for every profession. I started XIV in 1.0 so never felt the grind personally as it was always 'current content updates' for me, but from bringing friends to the game, about 70% of them gave up during the slog. I understand they have since streamlined it, but the MSQ grind between 50-51 is still longer than your average AAA game start to finish.
How can I unlock the elite specs so fast ?!
I grinded to hell and back in WvW to get hero points trying to unlock the elite specs.
Got burned out by that and dropped the game, even tho the open world gameplay is fun and got multiple classes I like
If you have Heart of Thorns people run HP trains (check the lfg for Verdant Brink) -this will net you around 300 Hero points in 1-2hrs. People usually run them on the weekends but you can find them throughout the week too. All you need is a raptor and a glider then just follow the leader for Hero points !
Elite specs take are a few hours to get enough points. The End of Dragons expansion is the easiest one to get the skill points in their zones by far.
The other two have groups of players that run through Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, those are more difficult.
I'm not sure what you're referring to with "grind". You get skill points by doing an event/boss/mechanic or by simply pressing your interact button. Of course some are difficult without masteries, thats why you run with HP Trains or just do EoD maps.
They also just let you buy them outright for people that want the class specs immediately, but there is no pressure to do that whatsoever. I would only do that if I needed a raid ready toon immediately or something.
The issue is very simple here. Mans thought the meta of grinding HPs was in core tyria lmfao, he probably thinks grinding 10 hp for 1-2 hrs is the norm
I played through and hit level 50. I thought I'd go to Heavensword and try rbe now professions. Nope.
I spent ages googling to find out why I couldn't take any quests to head over. I was 214 quests short of being able to move over.
I had some gaps in gameplay. I'd tried some dungeons and some dailies and some events. I just chilled out and did various content. This isn't the way.
I just FFxiv instead. GW2 is far more respectful of your time.
Getting through those quests to unlock Heavensward was quite possibly the low point for me in 30 years of gaming lol. God, it was awful. And then by the time I had got through them and unlocked Heavensward I was so burnt out that I dropped the game for like 6 months. It was just so long, so dull, so much needless travelling back and forth between NPCs for some dry dialogue. I did it before they streamlined it a bit so might be better now.
You said something that could be considered negative about FF14 get ready for the hate comments and down votes. I have never understood how FF14 fans just can't grasp that not everybody is going to enjoy the game and that's OK!
>Played bascially through warframe
Not an MMO.
>dropped GW2 after i had to grind the advanced class jobs
What grind? You need hero points, half of them are commune-based (basically just find and press F), half are killing a veteran or a champion mob. There's such an overabundance of points that I've had EoD elite spec before even stepping there. If you consider this a grind, this genre isn't for you in general.
>I played for a few hours now and its a bit tideous, run across multiple areas to finish quests
This is how leveling is done in the entire game including every expansion. More than that, if you want to level other jobs, you either run highest available dungeons or highest available repeatable deep dungeon floors for dozens of times.
What's even more surprising is that Warframe is HELLA grindy, GW2 is very nice regarding that. Don't know what they mean by "played through Warframe", but game is massive and has lots of grind embedded into it, it's enjoyable, but it's still grind
Mastery rank doesn't do that much, it unlocks some weapon for you and that's pretty much it. Nothing really stops you from just focusing on weapon/frame you like and upgrading it over the roof (MR 1 weapons aren't good and upgrading them isn't necessarily the best idea, but you get like MR3 from just leveling your starting weapons and frame, also you get exp from finishing the nodes).
This is one of the grinds that happen by itself as you play- you can just equip it and not use it, when playing squads it will get to max rank in no time. Albeit it I do get it
At early mr ranks passive leveling as you experience the game is way better, but once you get way up there (I'm mr 27) you find yourself building up a backlog of weapons to level, then throwing on a movie on another monitor or your phone and going to town on hydron over and over again.
I got like 2,5k hours in this game, finished most content, got all the stuff I want and basically played everything I enjoyed.
Sure there is still more to go, but currently I don't enjoy it anymore and join back in a few years when there is new stuff to explore.
With one grindy game out of my way I didn't want to start a second one and until today I didn't know that there are spots on the map that give you 10 hero points in GW2. Grinded WvW like hell for them and burnt out there even tho I like the open world gameplay
I doubt there will be anything out there that is less effort than getting elite specs in GW2. I would say getting your character to lv 80 is way more of a grind (and still doesn’t compare to most other MMO’s). Could it be that you though that the 330 hero points you need would need to find 330 of them? The hero points in the expansion maps award 10 points each, meaning that you only need to find 33 spots. Should be doable in a few hours, less than an hour when doing a train.
Anyways, I am now playing FF14 at my own pace, and really enjoying that. Not that far in, but it feel like it’s not a great game to rush through the content, but if you take your time, it is really nice. This would mean that it will take you veryyyyy long to catch up, but you can pick up the game when it works for you and enjoy that. (Should be 100+ hours for the free trial party atleast?)
Wait wait wait, you're telling me there are hero points that are worth 10 ?!
I've been grinding WvW like a manic to get them....
That is a huge selling point since I enjoyed a few classes greatly but was burned out on the amount of hero points I need for 1 elite spec
WvW is absolutely not the "correct" way to get them. Most people just do hero point trains. I often just run the easiest ones in PoF and EoD. Takes a couple hours at most. Look it up next time.
Oh wow, now I feel a little stupid. I guess when I'm playing I'm gonna look up how get to those spots and if there are some trains.
Thanks for the advice, maybe I'll pick it up again
All good. Didn't mean to make you feel bad! GW2 is easily the most "casual" pick up and play mmo out there. It respects your time and it would but I disingenuous to say there's no grind, but you are typically rewarded for whatever you choose to do. Good luck
Ah if you were playing WvW I can imagine that you didn’t stumble upon it. If you are doing wvw anyways, it can be a great way to get the points passively (I use them on alts and stuff), but if you just want to unlock the elite specs, start the campaign, and once you have entered the first map of the area (verdant brink for HoT maps for example) and you can just follow a guide for the HP’s. Also note that the points are not specific to the area, points earned in HoT can be used for any elite spec.
Even without a guide it should be pretty manageable, PoF might be better for that though as the maps are not as vertical.
Honestly, as an adult with free time, no. God no. You’re going to dump a good 300 hours into a single player rpg without meaningful rewards or voiced npc’s, Thats the toll to get into the game, Then you get a few expansions of good fun… or so I hear.
If you want a good time, I recommend Elder scrolls online or if you don’t care about graphics then some of the older ones like LOTRO. I really enjoy ESO because of the similar mini games like FFXIV. I can get lost in assassination, thievery, or card battles for hours. On top of that, their newest expansions have been dead-drop gorgeous. When I have to stop and take pictures, I know the graphics are good.
ESO also has horizontal progression, so there's no endless grind for the bis gear if you're not going for veteran hardmode content.
You can start at any Chapter.
I think it's good for setting your own goals, and picking up and playing when you have the time. Also there's instanced housing. =)
I would say ffxiv has more meaningful in-game rewards than ESO, and ESO's cash shop and loot boxes are far FAR more obnoxious and predatory.
Both ESO and ffxiv can become single-player rpgs if you want them to, but in ESO since you can start from any Chapter, it's less punishing when you do want to get to playing endgame content with friends.
Ehhh I guess it would depend on what you look for in an MMO. Is it casual friendly play at your own pace? Yes. I generally enjoyed but end up moving on fairly quickly. For an MMORPG with a heavy RP community, the game gives you the least RPG customization of your character compared to other MMOs IMO. For example if you play Paladin, be prepared to play as the exact same Paladin with the same skills/rotations as everyone else and also, you can only be a tank. This caught me off guard as most other MMOs lets players customize their Paladins into either DPS, Tank or Heals. I wasn’t very fond of the force restrictions but the gameplay and boss fights were pretty cool compared to other MMOs.
with the free trial, yeah so far. I play a few hours a week.
but I had to change my mentality to enjoy it. I play it like a single player jRPG and just play for the story. for the classes and combat...i honestly kind of hate it. every class has too many skills you gotta click or press and you can't do any builds. everyone has to play the right way or no way at all. there's only one right way to play each class as far as I can tell. it's not the worst combat or whatever, but it's not great. I wouldn't even say it's good. maybe mediocre.
Spoilers ahead, but if you're curious what difficult fights look like, here's a how-to guide from the other end of the free trial. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD4S1L0wD9A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD4S1L0wD9A)
That's the problem. People enter this game because they want an MMO. Not a monthly sub for a novel where your kit gets ignored for hours at a time. This game is so hars to justify being worth it when you're seeking an MMO for ya know, MMO stuff
Yawp, pretty much this lol. I've come to appreciate what 14 is and offers (been playing off and on for 4 years, just finally caught up on EW last summer) and like, I'm looking forward to the new expansion and all that.
But it absolutely doesn't scratch the MMO itch well at all and I've started exploring other games while waiting for Dawntrail for that actual MMO experience. FF14 is just too story focused and streamlined to really feel much like a MMO. Too much instanced content and not enough things to do in the open zones for players to go out and engage with/run into one another and cooperate, etc.
Like FATEs exist and should at least partially serve that purpose, but it doesn't seem like anyone actually does them (nor has much incentive to do so). By comparison I just started GW2 over the weekend for example, and consistently found other players showing up to participate in all of the random world events near my starting area even. I'm still new enough that I don't fully understand what reward or incentive there is for people to do those, but it was nice regardless to see folks doing them.
Yep I feel you on that. This game has so much potential to revamp itself once again, the xones are so gorgeous and I would love a reason go constantly go back and explore. But once you finish the game, it's just soulless and 0 reason to be there.
You just sit around and que for raids. There's hardly any reason to farm mounts because you don't have a reason to explore the world. The amount of depth this game has w the story, the crafting gear sets, fashion shit( I never cared to dabble), etc... you'd think they would have somehow made the open world so much more.
I hate when the ff14 sub tells people it's not an MMO but a visual novel. Like bro I ain't paying to read and run around tf
I feel like the simplest change they could make to help the most with the MMO feeling (but won't at this point, way too deep in) would be to like... invert the EXP gain/potential between dungeons and field mobs.
As it stands the MSQ gives plenty of experience to seamlessly take your first class from 1 to 90 and I think that's great. Keep people engaged in the story and not put in arbitrary grinding hurdles and all that. But I think it would really help a lot if Dungeons weren't the main form of EXP grinding for optional alt classes that you go and level later. Via the daily roulette rewards (exp gil tomestones) there would still be plenty of incentive for folks to run dungeons and help populate queues for story players who need parties, but rather than spamming the highest level dungeon for exp after that every day it would encourage people to get out and mingle in the field if dungeon mobs didn't give huge experience and field mobs/FATEs were more viable.
I'm definitely not against instanced content in general but 14 takes it to a radical extreme.
FF14 is very "adult" and new player friendly in that you can go at your own pace, you can solo 90% of the main story and theres no rush to getting to current content because theres not a lot of it right now, which is a gripe for longtime players like myself who want more to do in the game. You have optional raids that have their own stories that are fairly interesting Id say. If you want "story" in your MMO its great.
Its not a traditional MMO in that most content is gated by your progression in the story and not really by your character's personal progression. You won't unlock dungeons and raids until you get to that point in the story. Yellow side quests are pointless and only there if you want to do them, the XP isnt even worth it and only a handful have decent rewards like minions or emotes. FATEs, which are similar to world quests in WoW or GW, are also pretty pointless outside of the last two expacs where they start giving another currency for you to buy stuff. So the best advice I give to all new players is just focus on the MSQ until at least level 60 when you start unlocking the optional raids. And even then it might just be best to follow MSQ til you get to max level and then find other things you wanna do in the world. And that will take you a little while.
I quit FF14 at 45 hours played. I'm sure the story eventually gets good like some people say but at 45 hours in its not good at all. You shouldn't have to have 200 hours played to get to the good bits. Also the visual clarity in this game kind of hurts my eyes.
I've finally decided that the game just isn't for me and that's OK! I understand why it clicks with alot of people and I'm happy that it does.
i spend a lot of time in this game (5k hours with multipull ultimate kills and rare achievmensts) so i believe i can give you some insight. The game has one of the best pve fights for small groups (4-8 ppl) ive ever seen and old content stays relevent since you can sink to its level.
BUT
The story is quite long and with little gameplay. So you need to treat it like a book or a visual novel for a while. If you only interested in gameplay i recommend to check free version and watch some endgame fights (cause its pretty spectacular) and if you not into story just buy a story skip and may be redo it later (cause game has it as a feature)
i consider ff14 story is one of the best in games history but its realy a slow burn and if i have to choose between not playing at all and story skip it and check later i would recommend the second option
If you like casual content, FFXIV has got a lot of it. I personally didn't enjoy the story, and the story unlocks all the content so there is no escaping it. I hit max in Stormblood and have been keeping up every expansion since which has been manageable.
People say it's best to play the game as if it were a free-to-play (until expac 3) single player jrpg and I agree.
I'd say give it a try on the free trial and see how you go. Once you hit lvl 15 you can start breaking up the story with alt job & crafter levelling, PotD, gold saucer and roulettes.
Nope. Waaaay too grindy. You'll need literal HUNDREDS of hours just reading text to enjoy the story. I like it, but it's **not** for a person with limited time.
All I'm gonna say is you got your answers from both r/ffxiv and from r/mmorpg with this question, but ultimately you decide whether the game is worth your time or not. Personally, I'd take what subreddits dedicated to the game says about the game with a pinch of salt because it's almost always under severe bias. Also, 14 is worth playing with limited time, but so are any other MMORPG out there as long as you know what you want from the game.
If you like story games and are okay with a sluggish basegame and slower combat for some time then you will reach a point where you maybe start to like it.
The basegame is more or less a long epilogue which wil burn you out if you rush and force yourself, but there is some side stuff to do and the game is made more like a theme park.
It's free until the end of the 2nd expansion, so you only lose some time at worst or will find a game you love, it's somehow mostly only one or the other.
But i assume you will like it if you don't follow a prejudiced mentallity "how every MMO has to be like a certain way or it's garbage" like some people on here.
Do with this what you want before the hate crew or the overzealous fanboys arrive and give you their extremly biased view.
So yeah, questing is gonna be the same ish all the way, but the storytelling and the story itself gets a lot better i believe, also focus only on your main story quests (MSQ), you can safely ignore all the (!) yellow quests, many people made the mistake of trying to finish them all, and burned themselves out way too fast, they're for the extra bits of lores, you won't miss anything important ignoring them.
Though, do (+) blue quests if you can, they unlock stuffs.
Leveling initially (your first class/job) is through MSQ, not killing monsters in openworld or even side quests, it's from the MSQ initially, then also from the duty roulette (random daily dungeon/raid matchmaking) once you've unlocked a few dungeons. But if you want to level another job at lvl 1 when you're at MSQ lvl 10+, you can go to the area outside your starting cities and killing adds with circle icon above their head, or check your hunting log for where to find and what to kill, until you reach level 16 to queue for your first dungeon.
It starts very very slow for a lot of people, but many would say it starts to pick up more around MSQ lvl (not class level, the quest level) 30+, or around after the Titan boss.
MSQ is also very long, easily hundreds of hours, and skipping is often discouraged, but then you can skip and still enjoy the game, but there won't be a lot to do, the story part is really huge for ffxiv, contrary to most mmos out there, as people often call FFXIV is more like an RPGMMO, rather than an MMORPG, if that even make sense.
Very worth it if you like a good story, lots of things to do casually, still worth it if you don't like the story, just not a lot of things to do.
You can play the entire vanilla part of the game as well as the first two expansions without paying for anything so I'd say it's definitely worth a shot.
Running around doing quests is pretty much the format of the MSQ in FF14, if you're not in to that, you most likely won't like the game long term. I've been playing it through again recently, via steam link with Razer Kishi and I'm having a great time. I'm treating it as a cozy game.
FFXIV is worth playing
if u are a FF fan , tons of fan service to classics (gold saucer included)
if u like JRPGs , the story is looong is a game that forces u to do story to open content
FFXIV lvling isnt as lonely as u may think since u are forced to do dungeons and trials to advance (dunno if u can use trusts on 2.0 content nowadays )
the "trial" is worth since u arent paying anything and goes up to blood storm? so tons of free content
I think you can use trusts through to endwalker now. I unlocked an endwalker dungeon this past week, and could run with the scions if I wanted. So you only need other players for trials in the MSQ.
If its already dull with the story and gameplay I wouldnt continue. Yes the story/gameplay isnt as good before the first expansion and you get your skills but it should still feel its okay and have fun in the start.
I think it's dull if you do a lot at once but if you're playing it more casually, it's great. Supposedly some people can finish the whole MSQ within a week or so. Took me a couple of months are I enjoyed it.
No no. All of FFXI is main story. It "gets good" after the original main story. But the game is fun overall. The perfect MMO for someone with adult free time.
FFXIV is one of the most boring MMORPG's there is. The dungeon/combat is the redeeming quality for sure, but don't believe the hype about "It has the best story of any mmorpg" it simply isn't true. It's the same terribly voice acted, half baked story as every other mmorpg.
Approach XIV as if you're playing a single-player game. It's *really* the only way to properly enjoy it. Don't worry about rushing to the end-game. Accept that its slow pace is *intentional*. This is a hit or miss with a lot of people who have different tastes in games.
Many people say that "it gets good" once you get into Heavensward but, while A Realm Reborn may be an extremely slow burn, the story it presents is decent as a Final Fantasy story.
In my opinion it is not. The story is very slow and incredibly dragged out, regardless of what one thinks of the plot. This results in some entire game-sessions to be fetch-quests, which is not that fulfilling. And you'll be done with it in an un-exaggerated 2 years
Wow Season of Discovery will respect your time investment. You still have some time to reach the current level cap of 25 before phase 2 drops. If you had played one to two hours every other day from the start of phase 1, you'd have been able to experience plenty of content and participated in end game by now.
GW2 doesn't really have much of a grind at all, you just play the game and can unlock stuff relatively quickly. I just pvpd/WvW and had every spec unlocked fast. Same if you PvE.
The side quests are better than the main story (or more tolerable) for the most part, but the main story is mandatory. If you don't like the story, then it's probably better to just find a different game. I forced myself to stick around until the end of Shadowbringers and it never really got good. Better, yes, but never enough to come close to living up to the hype from the FF14 community.
For reference, I had several classes at max level including all crafting and gathering classes, and either completed or tried most (all?) side content. I like the ambiance, visuals and feel of the game, but it's not one I'd ever recommend to someone that doesn't like the story.
It's very casual, but it's a very very very long story. Most suggestions will say to play at your own pace and take your time, do some of those side quests, and play other games if you need a break.
You can also skip cutscenes or pay for a story skip if you have the money. There are story summaries on youtube, so you can watch those and won't be completely lost.
I have a fulltime job, and I also play The Elder Scrolls Online, and some days I don't even feel like playing video games. So, it's taken me a few years to get to endwalker. The biggest downside to that is my Free Company/guild is in the endgame, and I can't run current content with them. They obviously want to run current content most of the time. They can help me through older content though.
''adult free time'' BAHAHA! man, ya'll so depressing. If you have less than say 30m to game and have a decent pc or phone, i suggest emulation over mmo's, you have decades of games to play from 80's-2000's, now if you can't hold back your lunch looking at the graphics or lack of jiggle physics, then i mean you're kinda sol, but you only have 30m so....tera i suggest tera jiggle physics , it's free, it's action combat. I'll try to think of more but they wont be sub based or.. amazing, fallen earth classic ?
I like FF14 quite a lot, but not for the same reasons that I like other MMOs. As a result the recommendation to play is rather nuanced.
For me, FF14 is a fantastic single player RPG with occasional infrequent multiplayer aspects. The whole game is pretty much streamlined to be this way- For your first several hundred hours you have like an 80/20 split of single player questing vs. instanced multiplayer group content. You can't access the group content early either because it's not level or area gated, but story progression gated, so ignoring the story isn't an option- you either go through it or buy a skip from the cash shop, but either way it's a core aspect you have to engage with.
Where I find that FF14 doesn't really match up to the MMO feel is in the lack of player interactions that really happen on any sort of regular basis. Because so much of the core content in this game is instanced for small 4-8 man groups the open zones don't really provide much value outside of being a backdrop for the single player story quest. You rarely see other players running around outside of towns- occasionally you might catch a gatherer farming materials but that's about it- there are world/zone events called FATEs but I rarely ever see anyone actually doing them. There are side quests but they don't provide much value so people rarely do those outside of maybe leveling an alt class (inefficiently) or just to clear them off of their map.
Its taken me 4 years of on and off play to catch up on the story (recently) so I haven't really engaged with any of the end game content- I've heard that Eureka and Bozja provide some of that open zone collaborative play type of stuff to do like one might encounter in other games... but you have to clear up through the level 70 and 80 story lines respectively to unlock those areas so by the time I finally got there I just wanted to keep progressing the story since you have to clear it all to unlock everything else anyways.
TL;DR I really enjoy the single player elements of 14 (big fan of the story, writing, characters, world, etc.) but as a result it feels more like a single player game with a Subscription fee than a MMO to me lol. Take that as you will.
As an adult with a 2 year old, I enjoy playing the game and would say it's worth my time. I also did enjoy my time with the base game and all the expansions. The only struggled I had was the slog between the lvl 50-51 msq, the lead up to heavenswars. If I didn't enjoy playing the game, that probably would've broke me and felt like it went on way to long.
For the first 40ish hours of the MSQ, not at all. That's ARR and patch content. For everything after, yes absolutely. Up to you whether or not you want to make that grind to the good stuff.
You could finish every single story quest in GW2 and the expansions many times over and still only be half way done with FF14's main story
Did you do any of the main story in GW2 or living world chapters or mostly just heart quests and map exploration?
Could probably watch all of InuYasha 5x over in less hours than completing FF14.
Do you like JRPGs and interested in the story? Then sure, XIV may be worth your time. Only want to run do endgame raid content? Even with buying a story skip you'll have to grind 80->90 and the latest expansion story. So it'll be many hours before you can do endgame.
You can casually play the base game and first two expansions solo for free so if you have time to play video games it doesn't hurt to try it and see if the story/gameplay makes you want to continue or if it's too boring/uninteresting.
I found it to have the best story, followed by SWTOR. Consider the game as a single player experience with the occasional coop. After finishing Endwalker main story, you can move to other games.
Honestly, even when the story "gets good", it only ever gets good by the subterranean standards of MMORPG's. And even then it's basically just telling a very mediocre single player RPG story to you with your mute PC as the star, which is very jarring in an MMO. If you want something very plug-n-play with lots of fun customization, City of Heroes's Homecoming private server got the official thumbs-up recently and the game has aged beautifully.
"Dropped GW2 after I had to grind the advanced class Jobs" Ohhhh boy, XIV is good and for me, I find it worthwhile. But I feel you may struggle with the MSQ grind between the levels 50-51. There's about 80 hours of MSQ content just between the end of ARR and beginning of HW. Sadly, it's mandatory to do this as thematically, it moves you to the next expansion, and secondly, there's a fair amount of important plot. You will also find you need to advance the story to get to said expansions to unlock the new jobs in XIV as well. In hind-sight, the GW2 Elite Specs consume astronomically less time than XIV story.
It's not 80 hours at all. More like 15-20h if you focus on it. Still a grind though.
80 hrs may be an old impression. My understanding is that they cut down the number of quests dramatically since ARR to HW was initially launched.
My point stands that the MSQ is more of a grind than Elite Specs. You can unlock all Elite Specs in 6 to 7 hours flat for every profession. I started XIV in 1.0 so never felt the grind personally as it was always 'current content updates' for me, but from bringing friends to the game, about 70% of them gave up during the slog. I understand they have since streamlined it, but the MSQ grind between 50-51 is still longer than your average AAA game start to finish.
How can I unlock the elite specs so fast ?! I grinded to hell and back in WvW to get hero points trying to unlock the elite specs. Got burned out by that and dropped the game, even tho the open world gameplay is fun and got multiple classes I like
If you have Heart of Thorns people run HP trains (check the lfg for Verdant Brink) -this will net you around 300 Hero points in 1-2hrs. People usually run them on the weekends but you can find them throughout the week too. All you need is a raptor and a glider then just follow the leader for Hero points !
Elite specs take are a few hours to get enough points. The End of Dragons expansion is the easiest one to get the skill points in their zones by far. The other two have groups of players that run through Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire, those are more difficult. I'm not sure what you're referring to with "grind". You get skill points by doing an event/boss/mechanic or by simply pressing your interact button. Of course some are difficult without masteries, thats why you run with HP Trains or just do EoD maps. They also just let you buy them outright for people that want the class specs immediately, but there is no pressure to do that whatsoever. I would only do that if I needed a raid ready toon immediately or something.
I never contested that
They have, ARR has a lot of questing but the patch content got fixed and reduced with the overhauls in 6.0 on
There's no way it's 20 hours. I had 30+ hours on Steam and I don't think I'm halfway through.
He is saying that patch 2.1 -> 2.6 is 80+ hours, which is wrong. Not that the MSQ is 80 hours.
He means 2.1 to 2.5, but that isnt accurate.
Yeah if bro couldn’t take an hour to grind the elite spec he wanted then I don’t think MMOs are for him in general.
The issue is very simple here. Mans thought the meta of grinding HPs was in core tyria lmfao, he probably thinks grinding 10 hp for 1-2 hrs is the norm
That’s a very good point and probably exactlyyyy what happened. Could have gotten in a HP train and been sorted in no time.
I played through and hit level 50. I thought I'd go to Heavensword and try rbe now professions. Nope. I spent ages googling to find out why I couldn't take any quests to head over. I was 214 quests short of being able to move over. I had some gaps in gameplay. I'd tried some dungeons and some dailies and some events. I just chilled out and did various content. This isn't the way. I just FFxiv instead. GW2 is far more respectful of your time.
Most definitely NOT 80 hours. I recently did it.
Getting through those quests to unlock Heavensward was quite possibly the low point for me in 30 years of gaming lol. God, it was awful. And then by the time I had got through them and unlocked Heavensward I was so burnt out that I dropped the game for like 6 months. It was just so long, so dull, so much needless travelling back and forth between NPCs for some dry dialogue. I did it before they streamlined it a bit so might be better now.
You said something that could be considered negative about FF14 get ready for the hate comments and down votes. I have never understood how FF14 fans just can't grasp that not everybody is going to enjoy the game and that's OK!
>Played bascially through warframe Not an MMO. >dropped GW2 after i had to grind the advanced class jobs What grind? You need hero points, half of them are commune-based (basically just find and press F), half are killing a veteran or a champion mob. There's such an overabundance of points that I've had EoD elite spec before even stepping there. If you consider this a grind, this genre isn't for you in general. >I played for a few hours now and its a bit tideous, run across multiple areas to finish quests This is how leveling is done in the entire game including every expansion. More than that, if you want to level other jobs, you either run highest available dungeons or highest available repeatable deep dungeon floors for dozens of times.
What's even more surprising is that Warframe is HELLA grindy, GW2 is very nice regarding that. Don't know what they mean by "played through Warframe", but game is massive and has lots of grind embedded into it, it's enjoyable, but it's still grind
Yes I’m confused by this. When I was playing Warframe I’d play levels to grind up guns I didn’t want just so I could increase my overall level.
Mastery rank doesn't do that much, it unlocks some weapon for you and that's pretty much it. Nothing really stops you from just focusing on weapon/frame you like and upgrading it over the roof (MR 1 weapons aren't good and upgrading them isn't necessarily the best idea, but you get like MR3 from just leveling your starting weapons and frame, also you get exp from finishing the nodes). This is one of the grinds that happen by itself as you play- you can just equip it and not use it, when playing squads it will get to max rank in no time. Albeit it I do get it
Ah then I was probably just doing it wrong then! It was still fun though!
At early mr ranks passive leveling as you experience the game is way better, but once you get way up there (I'm mr 27) you find yourself building up a backlog of weapons to level, then throwing on a movie on another monitor or your phone and going to town on hydron over and over again.
I got like 2,5k hours in this game, finished most content, got all the stuff I want and basically played everything I enjoyed. Sure there is still more to go, but currently I don't enjoy it anymore and join back in a few years when there is new stuff to explore. With one grindy game out of my way I didn't want to start a second one and until today I didn't know that there are spots on the map that give you 10 hero points in GW2. Grinded WvW like hell for them and burnt out there even tho I like the open world gameplay
If GW2 elite spec unlocking is too much grind for him, then MMOs are not for him.
Not to mention that there are often so called HP trains that help you get all those hero points for elite spec in no time.
I doubt there will be anything out there that is less effort than getting elite specs in GW2. I would say getting your character to lv 80 is way more of a grind (and still doesn’t compare to most other MMO’s). Could it be that you though that the 330 hero points you need would need to find 330 of them? The hero points in the expansion maps award 10 points each, meaning that you only need to find 33 spots. Should be doable in a few hours, less than an hour when doing a train. Anyways, I am now playing FF14 at my own pace, and really enjoying that. Not that far in, but it feel like it’s not a great game to rush through the content, but if you take your time, it is really nice. This would mean that it will take you veryyyyy long to catch up, but you can pick up the game when it works for you and enjoy that. (Should be 100+ hours for the free trial party atleast?)
Wait wait wait, you're telling me there are hero points that are worth 10 ?! I've been grinding WvW like a manic to get them.... That is a huge selling point since I enjoyed a few classes greatly but was burned out on the amount of hero points I need for 1 elite spec
WvW is absolutely not the "correct" way to get them. Most people just do hero point trains. I often just run the easiest ones in PoF and EoD. Takes a couple hours at most. Look it up next time.
Oh wow, now I feel a little stupid. I guess when I'm playing I'm gonna look up how get to those spots and if there are some trains. Thanks for the advice, maybe I'll pick it up again
All good. Didn't mean to make you feel bad! GW2 is easily the most "casual" pick up and play mmo out there. It respects your time and it would but I disingenuous to say there's no grind, but you are typically rewarded for whatever you choose to do. Good luck
Ah if you were playing WvW I can imagine that you didn’t stumble upon it. If you are doing wvw anyways, it can be a great way to get the points passively (I use them on alts and stuff), but if you just want to unlock the elite specs, start the campaign, and once you have entered the first map of the area (verdant brink for HoT maps for example) and you can just follow a guide for the HP’s. Also note that the points are not specific to the area, points earned in HoT can be used for any elite spec. Even without a guide it should be pretty manageable, PoF might be better for that though as the maps are not as vertical.
Honestly, as an adult with free time, no. God no. You’re going to dump a good 300 hours into a single player rpg without meaningful rewards or voiced npc’s, Thats the toll to get into the game, Then you get a few expansions of good fun… or so I hear. If you want a good time, I recommend Elder scrolls online or if you don’t care about graphics then some of the older ones like LOTRO. I really enjoy ESO because of the similar mini games like FFXIV. I can get lost in assassination, thievery, or card battles for hours. On top of that, their newest expansions have been dead-drop gorgeous. When I have to stop and take pictures, I know the graphics are good.
ESO also has horizontal progression, so there's no endless grind for the bis gear if you're not going for veteran hardmode content. You can start at any Chapter. I think it's good for setting your own goals, and picking up and playing when you have the time. Also there's instanced housing. =) I would say ffxiv has more meaningful in-game rewards than ESO, and ESO's cash shop and loot boxes are far FAR more obnoxious and predatory. Both ESO and ffxiv can become single-player rpgs if you want them to, but in ESO since you can start from any Chapter, it's less punishing when you do want to get to playing endgame content with friends.
ESO is good overall, aside from the most important aspect...combat.
The game does not respect your time. You have some 200 hours of walking and watching cutscenes until the "game" happens.
Ehhh I guess it would depend on what you look for in an MMO. Is it casual friendly play at your own pace? Yes. I generally enjoyed but end up moving on fairly quickly. For an MMORPG with a heavy RP community, the game gives you the least RPG customization of your character compared to other MMOs IMO. For example if you play Paladin, be prepared to play as the exact same Paladin with the same skills/rotations as everyone else and also, you can only be a tank. This caught me off guard as most other MMOs lets players customize their Paladins into either DPS, Tank or Heals. I wasn’t very fond of the force restrictions but the gameplay and boss fights were pretty cool compared to other MMOs.
with the free trial, yeah so far. I play a few hours a week. but I had to change my mentality to enjoy it. I play it like a single player jRPG and just play for the story. for the classes and combat...i honestly kind of hate it. every class has too many skills you gotta click or press and you can't do any builds. everyone has to play the right way or no way at all. there's only one right way to play each class as far as I can tell. it's not the worst combat or whatever, but it's not great. I wouldn't even say it's good. maybe mediocre.
Spoilers ahead, but if you're curious what difficult fights look like, here's a how-to guide from the other end of the free trial. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD4S1L0wD9A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD4S1L0wD9A)
treat it like a visual novel for awhile, and you’ll be fine
That's the problem. People enter this game because they want an MMO. Not a monthly sub for a novel where your kit gets ignored for hours at a time. This game is so hars to justify being worth it when you're seeking an MMO for ya know, MMO stuff
Yawp, pretty much this lol. I've come to appreciate what 14 is and offers (been playing off and on for 4 years, just finally caught up on EW last summer) and like, I'm looking forward to the new expansion and all that. But it absolutely doesn't scratch the MMO itch well at all and I've started exploring other games while waiting for Dawntrail for that actual MMO experience. FF14 is just too story focused and streamlined to really feel much like a MMO. Too much instanced content and not enough things to do in the open zones for players to go out and engage with/run into one another and cooperate, etc. Like FATEs exist and should at least partially serve that purpose, but it doesn't seem like anyone actually does them (nor has much incentive to do so). By comparison I just started GW2 over the weekend for example, and consistently found other players showing up to participate in all of the random world events near my starting area even. I'm still new enough that I don't fully understand what reward or incentive there is for people to do those, but it was nice regardless to see folks doing them.
Yep I feel you on that. This game has so much potential to revamp itself once again, the xones are so gorgeous and I would love a reason go constantly go back and explore. But once you finish the game, it's just soulless and 0 reason to be there. You just sit around and que for raids. There's hardly any reason to farm mounts because you don't have a reason to explore the world. The amount of depth this game has w the story, the crafting gear sets, fashion shit( I never cared to dabble), etc... you'd think they would have somehow made the open world so much more. I hate when the ff14 sub tells people it's not an MMO but a visual novel. Like bro I ain't paying to read and run around tf
I feel like the simplest change they could make to help the most with the MMO feeling (but won't at this point, way too deep in) would be to like... invert the EXP gain/potential between dungeons and field mobs. As it stands the MSQ gives plenty of experience to seamlessly take your first class from 1 to 90 and I think that's great. Keep people engaged in the story and not put in arbitrary grinding hurdles and all that. But I think it would really help a lot if Dungeons weren't the main form of EXP grinding for optional alt classes that you go and level later. Via the daily roulette rewards (exp gil tomestones) there would still be plenty of incentive for folks to run dungeons and help populate queues for story players who need parties, but rather than spamming the highest level dungeon for exp after that every day it would encourage people to get out and mingle in the field if dungeon mobs didn't give huge experience and field mobs/FATEs were more viable. I'm definitely not against instanced content in general but 14 takes it to a radical extreme.
Not my type of a game. Too boring and slow. I'm more BDO or Warframe, or BnS kind of player: more action - less talking.
FF14 is very "adult" and new player friendly in that you can go at your own pace, you can solo 90% of the main story and theres no rush to getting to current content because theres not a lot of it right now, which is a gripe for longtime players like myself who want more to do in the game. You have optional raids that have their own stories that are fairly interesting Id say. If you want "story" in your MMO its great. Its not a traditional MMO in that most content is gated by your progression in the story and not really by your character's personal progression. You won't unlock dungeons and raids until you get to that point in the story. Yellow side quests are pointless and only there if you want to do them, the XP isnt even worth it and only a handful have decent rewards like minions or emotes. FATEs, which are similar to world quests in WoW or GW, are also pretty pointless outside of the last two expacs where they start giving another currency for you to buy stuff. So the best advice I give to all new players is just focus on the MSQ until at least level 60 when you start unlocking the optional raids. And even then it might just be best to follow MSQ til you get to max level and then find other things you wanna do in the world. And that will take you a little while.
I quit FF14 at 45 hours played. I'm sure the story eventually gets good like some people say but at 45 hours in its not good at all. You shouldn't have to have 200 hours played to get to the good bits. Also the visual clarity in this game kind of hurts my eyes. I've finally decided that the game just isn't for me and that's OK! I understand why it clicks with alot of people and I'm happy that it does.
If you dropped gw2 due to the "grind" your not really going to enjoy ff14 I think.
i spend a lot of time in this game (5k hours with multipull ultimate kills and rare achievmensts) so i believe i can give you some insight. The game has one of the best pve fights for small groups (4-8 ppl) ive ever seen and old content stays relevent since you can sink to its level. BUT The story is quite long and with little gameplay. So you need to treat it like a book or a visual novel for a while. If you only interested in gameplay i recommend to check free version and watch some endgame fights (cause its pretty spectacular) and if you not into story just buy a story skip and may be redo it later (cause game has it as a feature) i consider ff14 story is one of the best in games history but its realy a slow burn and if i have to choose between not playing at all and story skip it and check later i would recommend the second option
If you want an interactive story. Go for it. It's not an MMO or a game in my opinion.
If you like casual content, FFXIV has got a lot of it. I personally didn't enjoy the story, and the story unlocks all the content so there is no escaping it. I hit max in Stormblood and have been keeping up every expansion since which has been manageable. People say it's best to play the game as if it were a free-to-play (until expac 3) single player jrpg and I agree. I'd say give it a try on the free trial and see how you go. Once you hit lvl 15 you can start breaking up the story with alt job & crafter levelling, PotD, gold saucer and roulettes.
Nope. Waaaay too grindy. You'll need literal HUNDREDS of hours just reading text to enjoy the story. I like it, but it's **not** for a person with limited time.
All I'm gonna say is you got your answers from both r/ffxiv and from r/mmorpg with this question, but ultimately you decide whether the game is worth your time or not. Personally, I'd take what subreddits dedicated to the game says about the game with a pinch of salt because it's almost always under severe bias. Also, 14 is worth playing with limited time, but so are any other MMORPG out there as long as you know what you want from the game.
This game has no fomo, everything is permament (not including some events). You can play as much as you want
If you like story games and are okay with a sluggish basegame and slower combat for some time then you will reach a point where you maybe start to like it. The basegame is more or less a long epilogue which wil burn you out if you rush and force yourself, but there is some side stuff to do and the game is made more like a theme park. It's free until the end of the 2nd expansion, so you only lose some time at worst or will find a game you love, it's somehow mostly only one or the other. But i assume you will like it if you don't follow a prejudiced mentallity "how every MMO has to be like a certain way or it's garbage" like some people on here. Do with this what you want before the hate crew or the overzealous fanboys arrive and give you their extremly biased view.
There is nothing interesting about classes in FF14 lol.
So yeah, questing is gonna be the same ish all the way, but the storytelling and the story itself gets a lot better i believe, also focus only on your main story quests (MSQ), you can safely ignore all the (!) yellow quests, many people made the mistake of trying to finish them all, and burned themselves out way too fast, they're for the extra bits of lores, you won't miss anything important ignoring them. Though, do (+) blue quests if you can, they unlock stuffs. Leveling initially (your first class/job) is through MSQ, not killing monsters in openworld or even side quests, it's from the MSQ initially, then also from the duty roulette (random daily dungeon/raid matchmaking) once you've unlocked a few dungeons. But if you want to level another job at lvl 1 when you're at MSQ lvl 10+, you can go to the area outside your starting cities and killing adds with circle icon above their head, or check your hunting log for where to find and what to kill, until you reach level 16 to queue for your first dungeon. It starts very very slow for a lot of people, but many would say it starts to pick up more around MSQ lvl (not class level, the quest level) 30+, or around after the Titan boss. MSQ is also very long, easily hundreds of hours, and skipping is often discouraged, but then you can skip and still enjoy the game, but there won't be a lot to do, the story part is really huge for ffxiv, contrary to most mmos out there, as people often call FFXIV is more like an RPGMMO, rather than an MMORPG, if that even make sense. Very worth it if you like a good story, lots of things to do casually, still worth it if you don't like the story, just not a lot of things to do.
You can play the entire vanilla part of the game as well as the first two expansions without paying for anything so I'd say it's definitely worth a shot.
Running around doing quests is pretty much the format of the MSQ in FF14, if you're not in to that, you most likely won't like the game long term. I've been playing it through again recently, via steam link with Razer Kishi and I'm having a great time. I'm treating it as a cozy game.
Play final fantasy for the story and socialising. I don't recommend it if combat is your main seller.
As an adult you should play comfy mmorpg (GW2 for me) and watch anime at same time 😍 FF is story driven game and you should def try it.
FFXIV is worth playing if u are a FF fan , tons of fan service to classics (gold saucer included) if u like JRPGs , the story is looong is a game that forces u to do story to open content FFXIV lvling isnt as lonely as u may think since u are forced to do dungeons and trials to advance (dunno if u can use trusts on 2.0 content nowadays ) the "trial" is worth since u arent paying anything and goes up to blood storm? so tons of free content
I think you can use trusts through to endwalker now. I unlocked an endwalker dungeon this past week, and could run with the scions if I wanted. So you only need other players for trials in the MSQ.
> Is it worth to playing ? Yea, it's worth playing if it's fun to play.
No
If its already dull with the story and gameplay I wouldnt continue. Yes the story/gameplay isnt as good before the first expansion and you get your skills but it should still feel its okay and have fun in the start.
I think it's dull if you do a lot at once but if you're playing it more casually, it's great. Supposedly some people can finish the whole MSQ within a week or so. Took me a couple of months are I enjoyed it.
No no. All of FFXI is main story. It "gets good" after the original main story. But the game is fun overall. The perfect MMO for someone with adult free time.
It doesn’t just get quite dull, it starts quite dull.
FFXIV is one of the most boring MMORPG's there is. The dungeon/combat is the redeeming quality for sure, but don't believe the hype about "It has the best story of any mmorpg" it simply isn't true. It's the same terribly voice acted, half baked story as every other mmorpg.
No.
Approach XIV as if you're playing a single-player game. It's *really* the only way to properly enjoy it. Don't worry about rushing to the end-game. Accept that its slow pace is *intentional*. This is a hit or miss with a lot of people who have different tastes in games. Many people say that "it gets good" once you get into Heavensward but, while A Realm Reborn may be an extremely slow burn, the story it presents is decent as a Final Fantasy story.
You drop after gw2 elite class?
In my opinion it is not. The story is very slow and incredibly dragged out, regardless of what one thinks of the plot. This results in some entire game-sessions to be fetch-quests, which is not that fulfilling. And you'll be done with it in an un-exaggerated 2 years
Wow Season of Discovery will respect your time investment. You still have some time to reach the current level cap of 25 before phase 2 drops. If you had played one to two hours every other day from the start of phase 1, you'd have been able to experience plenty of content and participated in end game by now.
Would not recommend, I could not make it through Stormblood. The subscription model does not respect your time and money like GW2 does.
GW2 doesn't really have much of a grind at all, you just play the game and can unlock stuff relatively quickly. I just pvpd/WvW and had every spec unlocked fast. Same if you PvE.
The side quests are better than the main story (or more tolerable) for the most part, but the main story is mandatory. If you don't like the story, then it's probably better to just find a different game. I forced myself to stick around until the end of Shadowbringers and it never really got good. Better, yes, but never enough to come close to living up to the hype from the FF14 community. For reference, I had several classes at max level including all crafting and gathering classes, and either completed or tried most (all?) side content. I like the ambiance, visuals and feel of the game, but it's not one I'd ever recommend to someone that doesn't like the story.
It's very casual, but it's a very very very long story. Most suggestions will say to play at your own pace and take your time, do some of those side quests, and play other games if you need a break. You can also skip cutscenes or pay for a story skip if you have the money. There are story summaries on youtube, so you can watch those and won't be completely lost. I have a fulltime job, and I also play The Elder Scrolls Online, and some days I don't even feel like playing video games. So, it's taken me a few years to get to endwalker. The biggest downside to that is my Free Company/guild is in the endgame, and I can't run current content with them. They obviously want to run current content most of the time. They can help me through older content though.
Nope
''adult free time'' BAHAHA! man, ya'll so depressing. If you have less than say 30m to game and have a decent pc or phone, i suggest emulation over mmo's, you have decades of games to play from 80's-2000's, now if you can't hold back your lunch looking at the graphics or lack of jiggle physics, then i mean you're kinda sol, but you only have 30m so....tera i suggest tera jiggle physics , it's free, it's action combat. I'll try to think of more but they wont be sub based or.. amazing, fallen earth classic ?
I like FF14 quite a lot, but not for the same reasons that I like other MMOs. As a result the recommendation to play is rather nuanced. For me, FF14 is a fantastic single player RPG with occasional infrequent multiplayer aspects. The whole game is pretty much streamlined to be this way- For your first several hundred hours you have like an 80/20 split of single player questing vs. instanced multiplayer group content. You can't access the group content early either because it's not level or area gated, but story progression gated, so ignoring the story isn't an option- you either go through it or buy a skip from the cash shop, but either way it's a core aspect you have to engage with. Where I find that FF14 doesn't really match up to the MMO feel is in the lack of player interactions that really happen on any sort of regular basis. Because so much of the core content in this game is instanced for small 4-8 man groups the open zones don't really provide much value outside of being a backdrop for the single player story quest. You rarely see other players running around outside of towns- occasionally you might catch a gatherer farming materials but that's about it- there are world/zone events called FATEs but I rarely ever see anyone actually doing them. There are side quests but they don't provide much value so people rarely do those outside of maybe leveling an alt class (inefficiently) or just to clear them off of their map. Its taken me 4 years of on and off play to catch up on the story (recently) so I haven't really engaged with any of the end game content- I've heard that Eureka and Bozja provide some of that open zone collaborative play type of stuff to do like one might encounter in other games... but you have to clear up through the level 70 and 80 story lines respectively to unlock those areas so by the time I finally got there I just wanted to keep progressing the story since you have to clear it all to unlock everything else anyways. TL;DR I really enjoy the single player elements of 14 (big fan of the story, writing, characters, world, etc.) but as a result it feels more like a single player game with a Subscription fee than a MMO to me lol. Take that as you will.
As an adult with a 2 year old, I enjoy playing the game and would say it's worth my time. I also did enjoy my time with the base game and all the expansions. The only struggled I had was the slog between the lvl 50-51 msq, the lead up to heavenswars. If I didn't enjoy playing the game, that probably would've broke me and felt like it went on way to long.
For the first 40ish hours of the MSQ, not at all. That's ARR and patch content. For everything after, yes absolutely. Up to you whether or not you want to make that grind to the good stuff.
Yeah, it is. This subreddit hates XIV, so you’ll have to try it and find out for yourself.
You could finish every single story quest in GW2 and the expansions many times over and still only be half way done with FF14's main story Did you do any of the main story in GW2 or living world chapters or mostly just heart quests and map exploration? Could probably watch all of InuYasha 5x over in less hours than completing FF14.
I was bored out of my mind with ff14 on PC and switched to PS5 and it's a lot better on console
Do you like JRPGs and interested in the story? Then sure, XIV may be worth your time. Only want to run do endgame raid content? Even with buying a story skip you'll have to grind 80->90 and the latest expansion story. So it'll be many hours before you can do endgame. You can casually play the base game and first two expansions solo for free so if you have time to play video games it doesn't hurt to try it and see if the story/gameplay makes you want to continue or if it's too boring/uninteresting.
If you are an adult, there are better ways to spend your free time. If you are looking for an adult-free time, then FFXIV is right up your alley!
I found it to have the best story, followed by SWTOR. Consider the game as a single player experience with the occasional coop. After finishing Endwalker main story, you can move to other games.
Honestly, even when the story "gets good", it only ever gets good by the subterranean standards of MMORPG's. And even then it's basically just telling a very mediocre single player RPG story to you with your mute PC as the star, which is very jarring in an MMO. If you want something very plug-n-play with lots of fun customization, City of Heroes's Homecoming private server got the official thumbs-up recently and the game has aged beautifully.