FFXIV endgame?

Virtual01 · June 11, 2015

I'm thinking about starting up on FFXIV. I played it a while ago on a free trial and I really enjoyed the game (got to level 24 on my main class and level 11 on my secondary). If I'm going to play it for an extended period, I'd like to know how the endgame content is. Are the bosses challenging/ too challenging/too easy? How much communication is required to beat the harder dungeons? Is everyone an elitist jerk? How much of the games loot system is RNG based?

BoredErica · June 11, 2015

I'm thinking about starting up on FFXIV. I played it a while ago on a free trial and I really enjoyed the game (got to level 24 on my main class and level 11 on my secondary). If I'm going to play it for an extended period, I'd like to know how the endgame content is. Are the bosses challenging/ too challenging/too easy? How much communication is required to beat the harder dungeons? Is everyone an elitist jerk? How much of the games loot system is RNG based?

I don't play the game. But, I like FF14 soundtrack so I've watched a few videos. What I typically read is that FF14 is considered to be boring until you're level 50 and doing the bosses. Have you tried watching some videos of boss fights on Youtube?

I'm still waiting for them to release an update to the OST. =.=

CapricaBuccaneers · June 11, 2015

I played it for the full first year - then decided not to re-up my subscription beyond that. At that point admittedly I'd completed or maxed everything (within reason - one fully competed upgraded relic took me long enough I didn't go for another) so I'd run out of content. It's a decent game but relies far too heavily on gimmick fights - see the Primal Extreme fights and the Crystal Tower.

Because the servers for Europe and NA are all in Canada, if you live in any area where you are forced to connect to them (such as Europe) the added distance and delay unfortunately can make certain fights far harder than they actually are. 'Predodging' was a thing back when the Extremes were first released, even if you are good at it, it only takes one person to not be and your group can be on its way out.

As with any MMO, some of the quests involved in upgrading/obtaining relic items are ridiculously grind-walled (for example the FATE parts of the later Relic weapon stages can fail to appear for RL days at a time). It just plain isn't fun. And there's a ton of it.

As far as elitism - unfortunately there's a lot of it. You probably saw shouts for groups or ads in the Party Finder with specific item Level requirements that were stupidly high and not remotely necessary to complete the event advertised.

I was lucky having come from FFXI and didn't come into this blind, so it's possible to be billy badass and just walk through fights - but generally unless you can find a good group to consistently run with on a decent server it's going to be a slog. (Or down to luck with randoms).

Tldr - I'd probably still play it casually if it weren't for the subscription fee. I deliberately skipped over a lot of it because of the gigantic wall of text that would entail - safe to say it's fun for a while, but there's better out there.

Bouzoo · June 11, 2015

The community is the best I've ever seen. Ofc, there are many elitists, but I'd say about 70% of the community is top notch.

As far as endgame content goes, only CoB is (was) that hard but they nerfed it (and the god damn Titan in the beginning).

The story starts slow, but when it starts getting pace it really shines. A lot of stuff to do, you might get easily lost in there. The first 50 lv might have been boring, but since many things were added I don't think it is anymore. I played for the first full year but don't have that kind of time anymore, it really is time consuming. And it's getting an expansion soon and it's gonna get just better I'd say.
And the loot. Well it really depends. When we raided The Binding Coil of Bahamut, we couldn't get caster (Black mage and Summoner) drops if it killed us. Seriuosly, 6 weeks w/o a single drop. I almost fully geared my monk in the meantime. But then caster gear started dropping. We got the same drop (1 of 2 on the same turn) for the next 5 weeks, and almost everything else on other turns was a caster drop. So it's really RNG. I know a group that didn't get a single job drop for 2 months, but I also know another group that got almost everything for that job.