I remembered the other day that I have this blog and it's been over a year since I updated it! So let's have a catch up.
So FFXIV:ARR was finally released last year. I played 1.0 for a little bit but couldn't get into it. But I decided to give it another go, I didn't think I would play it a lot since I was still attached to FFXI quite a bit.
I got my 1.0 char back and after a few changes to appearance. I continued leveling my marauder, thinking it was a DD job.
I eventually hit 50 and started to dislike WAR. It had the defense of a little girl unless you were fully geared and I was never really a blood tank. I really got into MNK towards the end of my time in FFXI so I decided to give that a go.
I tried to log back into FFXI but holy shit. 14 is so visually pleasing. Going from a game at 30FPS to 100+ is a massive upgrade. FFXI was getting a bit ridiculous with all the stat vomit on all the gear so after a 7 year run. I decided to retire my character.
I will always look back on those 7 years with fond memories and although I moved on, I miss the old FFXI. 14 just doesn't feel the same in terms of strategy and knowledge of your job. Plus there's only really 1 set of gear for each job. If they did a massive overhaul of FFXI like they did for 4, I would come back in a heartbeat.
I did finish my Mandau though :D
So a couple of weeks passed, and I hit 50 MNK
After getting full Darklight and my Sphairai, I wanted to start raiding Coil. So I started to look at joining an end game Free Company.
I played a lot with a RL friend Called Amarant Coral, who was part of a free company called LMXVN. Their members were really well geared for so early in the game and they helped me a lot with my Sphairai. I really wanted to join but I didn't think it would happen.
I eventually got in and started coil with the main group on the first run. I did fairly well for my first run, Only having trouble with Belast on turn 2 as Melee DPS, which I was told a lot of people do.
I then went to a different group, Which I hated, They gave me really unclear instructions, we wiped to a lot of the turns. They gave me the job of soloing the last rook on turn 4 as a undergeared MNK and they didn't cure me.
And who did they blame?
Me.
I made very few mistakes, and when I did it was down to my inexperience of the fights. I also only has 2 pieces of allagan and they were both accessories so my DPS wouldn't of been amazing. But I knew my rotation and did what I could with what I had.
So they booted me out of their group. And I would have been kicked from the Free Company if it wasn't for Ss, Who stood up for me and agreed that what I was being told to do was stupid.
I was transfered to another coil group and although we started at 1AM my time. It was a blast.
I also started an Alt. To help out other groups who may have been short a member.
2.1 Then hit. Extreme primals came out with some really cool new weapons. But nobody in the Free company wanted to do them or wanted to help, So me and a friend then planned to take down turn 5. We spent weeks assembling people to go in and practise but at the last moment the leader of the FC took our BLM from us because they decided to kick theirs. I felt like LMXVN had nothing left to offer me and it was just one group of people who only ran with each other. So on new years eve. I decided to switch Free companies to Bad touch, Ran by former members of LMXVN who received the same treatment as us.
We own the first house built in Gridania on Excalibur and after some practise with a coil group. We finally beat twintania!
And I got lucky on my drops. :D
After some drama, our EU group also beat it
Looking forward to 2.2 and whatever challenges SE throws at us.
So what do I think of FFXIV?
To be honest, I think there's a lot of flaws in the game.
Firstly, you're forced to pick one job to gear up. so good luck if you're a person who likes to play multiple jobs with the best gear. Since they capped Mythology tombstones and you can only run coil once a week, You get gear very slowly.
Which brings me to the next point. Since you can't get a lot of gear in a short amount of time, you find yourself wondering 'WTF do I do for the rest of the week?' And the excuse 'It's a new game, give it chance' FFXIV is 3 years old. They should have included some of the 1.0 content to give people something to do rather than starting from scratch.
The community is fucking messed up. Everyone seems to be inpatient, doesn't like giving new people a chance or time to improve and it's all 'We must one shot this' or 'Experienced only' This game is extremely forgiving compared to FFXI and the community in XI was a lot more chill. Wipe in 14?, Try again! Wipe in 11? Tough shit game over. You've lost your pop set or claim on what you were fighting. This is one of the biggest things I miss about XI.
The final thing I don't like about the game is Coil. It's like the event is designed to turn people against each other. Due to only being able to raid once a week, If you don't get the gear you want. You have to wait til next week.
Therefore, Your best friend can turn into your worst enemy if they want the same pieces of gear as you, All the drama I've seen in this game has come from this fucked up event, I've stopped communicating with people who I considered good friends in the past, all because you can't farm the gear. This is changing for 2.2 but only for the current coil. The new turns will probably have the same system and it's fucked up. You should be able to leave with a piece of gear each week. I know people who have waitied over 20 weeks for a piece of gear. And some of those people are still waiting now.
So yeah it could be a lot better. But overall it's a really good game.
I don't know how often I'll keep updating. but hopefully it won't be another year until my next post.
See you around!
-Dom
