After some more Final Fantasy XIV
Mar. 23rd, 2020 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrSo, I've been playing the online multiplayer roleplaying game Final Fantasy XIV for about a month and really enjoying it! I still haven't found the free trial too limiting, and enjoy games less when I'm subscribed to them, so am continuing to put it off buying it. I do intend to buy a copy at some point just to pay them back for all the fun I've been having, plus I'll reach the free trial limit of level 35 in something eventually.
I switched servers, and then switched classes, so I'm only level 22 in my chosen class of pugilist right now, which is DPS (a high damage class). It seems best suited to my approach of running up to the nearest enemy and hitting it a bunch without paying much attention to the wider battle. I am expected to pay attention to my position with regard to the enemy and it's attacks, which I am pretty iffy at, but I'm doing ok so far. Playing a tiny little hobbitty girl punching the crap out of monsters is just as fun as playing one hitting them with a big axe was as a marauder (a tank, the tutorials for which involved too much "Oh no you screwed up and your companion died" for my equinamity)
The world is huge and pretty, with lots to explore, random NPCs only have like one line of dialogue but there's an enjoyable sense of place and character created by the main quests and sidequests. The plot so far is pretty Generic Fantasy but it's still fun, it's mostly been pretty light hearted and cute with the odd sad or dark bit. The heteronormativity is usually mild enough for me to ignore but the Vaguely Arabic city had more in the way of little hobbitty dudes ogling big boobed catgirl dancers than I'd prefer. The quests so far are pretty generic too, a lot of "kill 5 squirrels" or "gather these lost plants" but I hear that improves over time, and it's still fun.
Since there's a moderate amount of give for being over-levelled in quests, the only time my poor reactions and hand-eye coordination has really bitten me in the ass has been the class tutorial quests: rather than simply having to win, you have to fulfil specific requirements like "avoid getting hit more than five times". But so far I've gotten through them all. I fail other quests occasionally but none have been painfully challenging.
The main quest eventually switches from solo quests to party based quests, which you need to be level 15 for. I've only done one of these, with a random group of people chosen by the system. It wasn't a bad experience but was very overwhelming, I was the only noob (you get a little sprout symbol on your name so people know) and everyone just rushed from boss to boss with me doing my best to keep up and help without being too lost. Noone said anything, which means they specifically didn't say anything bad, and someone gave me a player commendation at the end which was nice if surprising. I think for the next main quest dungeon I'll watch it on youtube first so I know what I'm doing more. I can see it taking a while for party fights to go from terrifying to actually fun, but that's mostly because I get very anxious about both new social situations and the possibility of failing others, and want to avoid being The Annoying Noob.
In the meantime I've been doing the Pugilist quests and just exploring and doing whatever nearby quests I'm about the right level for. I'm curious to try the gathering and crafting classes, not even because they're useful (though I'm sure they are) but just because I like gathering and crafting.
sami and velithya invited me to their group, I have mostly been pretty shy but it's nice to have somewhere to ask nooby questions. There's an official new players chat but I am so nooby it mostly confuses me, afaict you count as a "new" player for a really long time so a lot of them are like level 80 and use a lot of terms I don't recognise.
I started out with my ps4 controller plugged into my mac laptop, this gave me sore arms so I switched to trackpad and keyboard which has mostly been fine. A mouse and full keyboard would be a lot better but it's worth the limitiations to lie down in bed.
I have not yet felt remotely attracted to any of the opportunities to spend extra money (on cosmetic items etc) but get the feeling that's more of a thing when you're a higher level. I am very happy with the little wolf puppy companion I got for free that follows me around, but some of the paid ones look pretty cute.
Anyway! If you want to try it out, it's free!
I switched servers, and then switched classes, so I'm only level 22 in my chosen class of pugilist right now, which is DPS (a high damage class). It seems best suited to my approach of running up to the nearest enemy and hitting it a bunch without paying much attention to the wider battle. I am expected to pay attention to my position with regard to the enemy and it's attacks, which I am pretty iffy at, but I'm doing ok so far. Playing a tiny little hobbitty girl punching the crap out of monsters is just as fun as playing one hitting them with a big axe was as a marauder (a tank, the tutorials for which involved too much "Oh no you screwed up and your companion died" for my equinamity)
The world is huge and pretty, with lots to explore, random NPCs only have like one line of dialogue but there's an enjoyable sense of place and character created by the main quests and sidequests. The plot so far is pretty Generic Fantasy but it's still fun, it's mostly been pretty light hearted and cute with the odd sad or dark bit. The heteronormativity is usually mild enough for me to ignore but the Vaguely Arabic city had more in the way of little hobbitty dudes ogling big boobed catgirl dancers than I'd prefer. The quests so far are pretty generic too, a lot of "kill 5 squirrels" or "gather these lost plants" but I hear that improves over time, and it's still fun.
Since there's a moderate amount of give for being over-levelled in quests, the only time my poor reactions and hand-eye coordination has really bitten me in the ass has been the class tutorial quests: rather than simply having to win, you have to fulfil specific requirements like "avoid getting hit more than five times". But so far I've gotten through them all. I fail other quests occasionally but none have been painfully challenging.
The main quest eventually switches from solo quests to party based quests, which you need to be level 15 for. I've only done one of these, with a random group of people chosen by the system. It wasn't a bad experience but was very overwhelming, I was the only noob (you get a little sprout symbol on your name so people know) and everyone just rushed from boss to boss with me doing my best to keep up and help without being too lost. Noone said anything, which means they specifically didn't say anything bad, and someone gave me a player commendation at the end which was nice if surprising. I think for the next main quest dungeon I'll watch it on youtube first so I know what I'm doing more. I can see it taking a while for party fights to go from terrifying to actually fun, but that's mostly because I get very anxious about both new social situations and the possibility of failing others, and want to avoid being The Annoying Noob.
In the meantime I've been doing the Pugilist quests and just exploring and doing whatever nearby quests I'm about the right level for. I'm curious to try the gathering and crafting classes, not even because they're useful (though I'm sure they are) but just because I like gathering and crafting.
sami and velithya invited me to their group, I have mostly been pretty shy but it's nice to have somewhere to ask nooby questions. There's an official new players chat but I am so nooby it mostly confuses me, afaict you count as a "new" player for a really long time so a lot of them are like level 80 and use a lot of terms I don't recognise. I started out with my ps4 controller plugged into my mac laptop, this gave me sore arms so I switched to trackpad and keyboard which has mostly been fine. A mouse and full keyboard would be a lot better but it's worth the limitiations to lie down in bed.
I have not yet felt remotely attracted to any of the opportunities to spend extra money (on cosmetic items etc) but get the feeling that's more of a thing when you're a higher level. I am very happy with the little wolf puppy companion I got for free that follows me around, but some of the paid ones look pretty cute.
Anyway! If you want to try it out, it's free!
no subject
Date: 2020-03-23 11:29 am (UTC)Sorry your first dungeon was quite rushed, a lot of dungeons can be like that because you're likely to be with people running levelling roulette for tomes & sometimes they just wanna get it done~ but having said that if you (as a sprout) ask for help then they should hopefully answer you (& if you're in a dungeon with someone with a mentor crown they should DEFINITELY answer you or they are a terrible mentor)
Also sorry that we haven't been on that much recently, there's been a lot going on IRL and I'm currently trying to make weekly caps for both me and Sami!! But if you need a hand with future dungeons please don't hesitate to ask either in linkshell (if you just want someone online to help right away) or ping us on discord and we'd be happy to arrange a time to help you with the dungeons!! The MSQ is mostly solo quests and solo duties with a scattering of dungeons, it just seems like a lot because the first three dungeons are all within a level of each other and some of them are very irritating!!
Leviathan novice network is actually in general very good about answering questions, there are often random conversations about level 80 shit going on though you are correct :| Everyone with a crown is a mentor who is supposed to answer questions from sprouts but they do just talk amongst themselves regularly when there aren't any questions (& also some of them are ASSHOLES) there are good ones though, we have collected a lot of them into our linkshell tho :)
hmmm anyway if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, you are a sprout and there is no such thing as a stupid question :)
no subject
Date: 2020-05-01 11:33 am (UTC)Thank you! You inspired me to actually ask questions in the novice network and people were very helpful. And yeah the number of dungeons has since been fine, and I find them a lot less scary now.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-05 10:29 am (UTC)