FF14 Day 4 - This Game Has NO TALENT TREES?!

[@indeimaus]

some of the trials (certainly extreme ones) are absolute spectacles to experience, you're gonna love em brother

[@eonduplessis11]

Not too mention more challenging content and challenges, savage raids, ultimates, palace of the dead solo etc.

[@bigfoot1291]

The fuck? Indei plays 14? AND WATCHES PREACH? My worldview is shattered.

[@JeysCZ]

Man so many random videos I watch have indeimouse comments.

[@shinkicker404]

:o

[@CaptainIcebeard]

So, when will we see FFXIV top 10 stones? But really, what a nice surprise that you play FFXIV!

[@wyattdupre2721]

Since I'm stupid and FF14 is my first MMO, I really liked how they drip fed me actions so I could slowly understand things years before they become critical. I can imagine less patient people getting frustrated but I had fun slowly getting stronger

[@emkay1182]

Same. Also potd is a fun way learning ur abilitys

[@wyattdupre2721]

@@emkay1182 i played for a boutique a month before a learned that palace gave experience outside the dungeon. I thought was only inside lol

[@emkay1182]

@@wyattdupre2721 haha yeah its a pretty nice place to level ur charakter to 16 for the leveling roulette

[@luchts4547]

Yeah I think that's their main reason for keeping the early game very slow. It feels terrible to seasoned MMO players but for someone new to the genre or gaming in general I assume it helps them to not be overwhelmed.

[@felixvelariusbos]

Oh 100% same. This was my first MMO, and honestly the first big game I'd played in years because of Life Reasons. I'm super glad it didn't just throw me into the wolves because I was already kinda overwhelmed. Once you're used to it, it's no big, but I think people sometimes forget just how much /stuff/ there is to learn in FFXIV specifically and MMOs in general.

[@Saimeren]

The only Lalafel that act cutesy and childlike are the player controlled characters. The actual NPC Lalafel are literally conniving thieving, scheming crime bosses that control the underworld.

[@chloekaftan]

you'd almost think Tataru was part of the Syndicate with how many connections she has and how much sway and influence she has over the City state Leaders, like how shes able to get them to give her their undivided attention in remaking certain spoilery gear, or being able to coax Garlond Ironworks to build her- her very own Airship capable of outpacing Cid's Enterprise, or being able to sway the East Aldenard Trading Company (an overt branch of the Syndicate). i would be hard pressed to think of what she couldn't do honestly, her role as the Scions Legendary Coin Keeper is certainly an understatement.

[@SparkShadow212]

If you look into the lore even deeper, the lalafels basically caused a Great Umbral Calamity.

[@zeehero7280]

@@SparkShadow212 Wasn't that the lalas of Mhach?

[@SparkShadow212]

@@zeehero7280 Yep, and the lalas from Amdapor too.

[@TheWickedWizardOfOz1]

@@SparkShadow212 And the lalas of Nym were just like "godsdamnit guys"

[@ProjectDandy]

Most talent trees in MMOs eventually just turns in to "Pick this for optimal DPS." Don't really miss them in FF.

[@ignispurgatorius5297]

Same, at least half the talents I have in WoW I have never specced into in the first place. Heck some of them haven't been touched in in 6+ years. At best I can sometimes swap between aoe and st, but I'm not sad to have a fully working concept for either baked into the base class in FFXIV, instead of chosing one over the other.

[@PrimarchRoboleonFrenchyman]

Depends, in pve often but in pvp, you usually switch up depending of match up. And some spec like Ret Paladin have a begineer and a advanced build thanks to the talent system.

[@torashiki5646]

That or you need external apps to figure out because X talent has a weird icd interaction with the megafarted trinker that can proc 10 random effects so you just pick Y talent despite looking worse in paper. OR you end up asking why this talent passive isnt baseline because it makes the class function so much better (like echo of the elements ele shaman).

[@KLGChaos]

Yep. FFXIV is also much more balanced than WoW because of it.

[@cattysplat]

It also gave a window to bully, abuse, troll and kick new players who hadn't researched best build outside of the game. WoW is absolutely endemic of this.

[@Icycrits]

"I like the dark elements of stories." Preach, you are in for a wonderful ride.

[@iPopeIxI]

Tamtara hard is gonna hit him hard

[@WhimsyGamer]

@@iPopeIxI *cough* Yotsuyu

[@CrashB111]

Yoshi P loves to rip your heart from your chest. And you thank him for the experience.

[@KMCA779]

He's going to love the whole Bloody Banquet story.

[@camorucamoru4664]

ohhhhhh poor tesleen

[@draphking]

The “joke” of the lalafell is that a majority of them are either complete scumbags or have incredibly deep unfitting voices Krile is best girl btw

[@bosinclaire7670]

Yuyuhase's voice on japanese is as far as I remember the most standout deepest.

[@ninnoofthelastunicorn]

Not only that, Lala history is fucking insane: Ul'dah Poisoned a rival city's water supply and, in response, that selfsame city casted a curse that forced their citizens and army to become undead. The Temple are Qarn that Mike mentioned in the video, was a place where Lalafels were regularly sacrificed, then in alter history Lalas enslaved those people and forced them to build the massive bridges you see in Thanalan. The war of the Magi might as well be called "Lalafels did a thing, again." I've always said Lalas are the best and worse things of Goblins and Gnomes of WoW, amplified by ten.

[@andrewshandle]

@@bosinclaire7670 Yeah, it's pretty funny. ;)

[@andyramirez4293]

Cap everyone knows that Tataru is best girl

[@miri5373]

@@ninnoofthelastunicorn Popotoes are just the sweetest little ones with carnage or pure carnage

[@MatthewSwaine]

Even the "Bad" dungeons/bosses have a design about them. I remember hearing years ago, the devs saying, the reason they designed the slime boss that way, is that early on, it gets people to communicate with each other "Hey! Don't attack that enemy or else we cannot win" etc. Now, yes this could have been designed a bit better, but coming from the disgrace that was '1.0' into 'A Realm Reborn' they didn't have the longest time to come up with some things, and I personally feel this was actually a good way to implement the idea that communicating is important in this game in a quick method.

[@joshy541]

First boss: not a boss, a very easy and safe combat scenario that sends sprouts into confused panic by *appearing* chaotic so they can get more familiar with adapting to strange combat scenarios. Second boss: a check to make sure new players know to read/use chat. If even a single one never checks chat, then the boss is unbeatable. Third boss: Tank has to decide how to handle the aggro-ignoring adds. Chase them down so DPS isn't spread out or sit in place to keep the boss stable. DPS also has to decide on whether or not to split with the tank, and whether they should both go(sadly third boss is ilvl cheesable now). Bonus: the area right before the third boss encourages you to pay attention to where you're going and help you realize if you have navigation issues. Bonus bonus: progress is blocked by obvious intractables that require at least a non-zero amount of exploration. Punching things isn't the end-all-be-all.

[@nefrath5234]

its a shit design, if what they said was true then there would be more fights like these that would require you to do or dont do x or y

[@mithshude]

@@joshy541 i figured the best thing to do with the third one is to pull the boss to the area the adds run to. but you are 100% correct though. i started playing the game a few weeks ago (just finished ARR yesterday) and went blind through everything as a tank. this was pretty much my exact experience on each one of the bosses (plus bonuses). this game is amazing at telling through action so to speak and each early dungeon introduces mechanics step by step so that you learn what is what before you go on your first higher difficulty stuff. fenrir was my first wipe in the game since we happened to be a completely new group in the dungeon, but even that was a really easy version of the mechanic meant to teach you to look out and pay attention to whats going on (trying not to spoil in case new players read)

[@StormierNik]

@@nefrath5234 They do have a couple other fights in that nature, one of which is a guildhest where you're meant to put a turtle to sleep. And guildhests are things recommended for new players. Even the dungeon heavily showcased in the video you have to make sure you don't kill the blocks off of the switches to open doors. You don't have to have too many fights in the first place to try and guide players towards thinking about their actions more.

[@luchts4547]

Yeah I actually always have loved that boss. Most of the old dungeon bosses are just a tank and spank ignoring any mechanics and I like how that one forces people to do something different.

[@zebrion5793]

Preach, if you're enjoying yourself now in ARR, you're going to be absolutely blown away in Heavensward and beyond. The gameplay gets SO much better, the story towards the end of ARR/into HW is incredible, and the raid bosses continually get better in both the audiovisual and mechanical departments.

[@Nukerunin]

This. The stuff right before HW and all of HW's story in general is probably going to gel really well with him. The whole expansion is much darker than ARR. Everything's very medieval with a touch of Spanish Inquisition in theme, and you end up smack in the middle of one of the biggest and most awesome wars. Loved the hell out of that expansion. I doubt Stormblood is going to compare.

[@ridleyroid9060]

@@Nukerunin I would say more with a touch of the holy roman empire/vatican, but thats pedantic.

[@GamerFlair]

That editing was amazing. "Am I being carried right now." Instantly dies. XD

[@tibowmew]

When I started playing this game, it was my very first MMO. I'd never played a computer game either, so the entire idea of a HUD was also confusing. I felt incredibly overwhelmed too, since I had chosen gladiator not knowing it was a tank job. My instant thought was that other high level players would be mad at me for sucking or not knowing where to go in a dungeon. Admittedly, I had other factors like a really small and dimly lit screen that weren't helping, but I found the slower pacing and drip feeding to be extremely useful in getting me more calm and comfortable with the gameplay and expectations early on.

[@koboshi38]

while FF14 is not my first MMO or PC game I can say when I started out I understood that the developers were making the assumption that people entirely new to these games would be playing and to ensure that not too much is thrown at them at once. This might upset people who come from some other games where people are impatient but I agree with the design philosophy having the player base stressed out weather they are new to the game or been playing for years ultimately leads to people being hostile to each other in game and damages the community as a whole

[@ninjafoxgamesgeekery]

This is exactly why it's designed the way it is. Yoshida stated he expected they might have a lot of Final Fantasy fans who have never played an MMO or a PC game (PC gaming has historically been smaller in Japan, Yoshida was a bit of a weirdo being into PC gaming back in the day), so they designed a lot of Realm Reborn around the idea of new players who never played an MMO before.

[@beauraymond11]

Also started gladiator thinking it was dps. Found out I enjoyed tanking though and rerolled a paladin.

[@hickknight]

@@beauraymond11 we don't call it rerolling. It's basically just upgrading nowadays.

[@SpectraLight]

After Mike saying he loved the spectacle and visual presentation of Ifrit I can't wait for him to see later fights! Gonna be a blast to see his reaction to some of the crazy awesome shit this game has in terms of raid fights.

[@ragezero6853]

Not to mention he loves getting immersed in the story. Imagine him taking on Castrum Fluminis... oh I can't wait to see his reaction!

[@dsan17]

He's gonna love Titan EX.

[@vudangtung5638]

Containment bay hype baby

[@Sheeps856]

Sweet heck I hope he does the Alexanders blind.

[@raverkitsune]

I am super excited for Four Lords :D

[@KlineStife]

i always found that the problem with having "more customization options" in rpgs is that they always end up being optimized the shit out of, and the only reason to pick other options is to just roleplay or, at the very best, make a gimmick meme build that's pure fun.

[@Peiruhn]

True. Its fake choice most of the time, where the other choice is just crippling your character. Which results in either Devs tuning content to crippled characters, or making players that made 'wrong' decision miserable

[@MGShadow1989]

There are SOME situations where other build options have a place, like how WoW has more mobile builds for casters and such, but even then I'd still prefer to have my whole toolkit like we do in FF

[@Haeruna]

its also much more difficult to balance 48 builds compared to 18 classes.

[@The92Waffles]

True. Though the only outlier to this are the RPGs (namely the oldschool ones) which are broken unless you pick the correct combination of stats. Modern games are better about it; balanced so that you can play how you want without making progression impossible. I guess people are worried about making a wrong build which they think will prevent them from getting as far as they want

[@Anddroiden]

Horizontal progression is a dangerous thing because while it technically allows for more playstyles in reality it often actually removes choice from the players because in almost every situation there's an optimal choice and the theorycrafters and minmaxers know what that choice is. Since most other players don't they will look up a resource to get that information and that will be how players choose their choices. If players are allowed to change their mind they will all eventually choose the cookiecutter build when they want to enter end-game and if they're not allowed to change most will look it up beforehand to make sure they don't waste their points. Giving players a choice in an MMO especially is often the same as not giving a choice since anyone not following the cookiecutter build can be replaced quickly by people who do follow it.

[@Gardelain]

Copperbell Mines always gave me the impression that it was one of the first dungeons they made. There's a lot of strange points where enemy aggro simply drops, every boss is focused on bizarre gimmicks that don't really work out to be fun, and there's a lot of stopping points that don't also offer visuals or events to make them interesting.

[@SkyraM]

it definitely feels like a tutorial dungeon, forcing you to take it slow and communicate with your team

[@Ch4pp13]

@@SkyraM Not as much forcing you to take it slow, but if I had to describe it, every other dungeon feels like you're free to shift into any gear you want, but Copperbell Mines forcefully shifts you down into 2nd or 3rd on a highway bit otherwise it's going to scream. As boring as Sastasha is, I'd take that over Copperbell. It's great as a beginner dungeon, the constant stop to momentum to do a "puzzle" just gets annoying after a while.

[@SkyraM]

There are enemies which can't be pulled out of their area, which is what I meant by forced to take it slow - theres a part where you have to go into two side rooms to get keys and you can't just group them all up like in other dungeons Otherwise yeah, it's a dungeon that I wish you only had to play once or twice ever lol, but sprouts need teammates!

[@hansbrolo]

Regarding Damage Meters: Yoshi-P has gone on record saying that while technically all third party programs are against ToS. How would they even police damage meters? Would they go after people using excel and manually calculating everything with a calculator? It’s a third party program, yes, but it also is something you could have regardless of having FFXIV. So their general rule of thumb for mods like ACT is, they won’t go after you for it, provided you don’t use them on streams or use them to harass other players for not doing enough damage. Basically, as long as you are only using it for personal growth or stuff, and not being mean to other players because of it, they won’t do anything. But once you start harassing others, they’ll hit you with a harassment ban first, then a “using mods” ban. There’s a video somewhere on KZbin with him actively talking about this and how enforcement is a slippery slope. I highly recommend watching it.

[@KMCA779]

ALL mods are banned. I can't even put a rabbit tail on my Viera without worrying about a ban in the future.

[@SignumCruxis0]

@@KMCA779 Parsers are not the same as those. It doesn't need to modify anything on the game itself (it just catches data so it can show it to you in a better format), visual mods (ala skyrim or FO4) are a big no no especially if you need to alter the gamefiles themselves.

[@hkoizumi3134]

Being able to change jobs on the fly is their version of talent tree. Since you can get decent gear near BIS fairly easily and it's weighted more to skill than stats, it's common for FFXIV players to have multiple mains. Most usually within their roles.

[@saindst]

No. FF14 Roles can be considered class and jobs as the specs. Like the classes are Ranged Physical, Melee, Tank, Caster and Healer. Each oj those roles have specs which are the jobs. There is no way to change anything and you are stuck with and only ONE optimal rotation with NO variation for fucking two years. This is the one thing that pisses me off about the game.

[@torashiki5646]

​@@saindst Actually as a wow veteran and ffxiv player you are very much wrong. I will be direct: WoW classes/specs are extremely incomplete and unusable without talents. FFXIV jobs dont need talents because they are complete at baseline. This is very much easy to see when you count the amount of abilities each have. Without talents, WoW classes/specs have half or less the actions that FFXIV jobs have, and in most cases, much less gameplay complexity. And honestly? I will take FFXIV's excellent class balance over the mess that is WoW class balance. Talents are only an illusion of choice at this point, specially for people who dont play the classes who historically are preferred like mages.

[@TerryVideoZone]

​@@saindst While I kind of get your point, some of what you're saying isn't necessarily true. For example, PLD and BLM have multiple optimal openers which can have a pretty significant impact on your rotation through the fight. In the case of PLD the one you want to use will depend on the encounter, and with BLM it depends on which spell speed bracket you fall into or decide to gear yourself around. I do think it would be nice if the Job design were a bit more open-ended at least in "how you can play optimally", but in general there are bigger issues I take with the game like how every piece of gear is just a stat stick with none of the flavour or impact of gear in a game like say, FF11.

[@mstitek7679]

It took me a long time to get from the WoW mindset of having addons and meters and customizations and trying to figure if I'm doing good damage or bad damage and I was frustrated by it for quite some time. But somewhere in Heavensward I actually realized that none of that is important and all that matters is if you do your mechanics correctly and finish the fight. Since then I was enjoying the game a lot more and I realized it so much better system than the WoW's analytical hell. This is a beautiful example of the saying: Less is sometimes more.

[@MaakaSakuranbo]

Finishing the fight can mean passing a dps check though

[@Henji96]

Nothing is preventing you from getting all that in FF. There's damage meters and a lot of customisation with xivlauncher.

[@migueltucabron]

I just started using ACT. Pure usage without being toxic towards others is not bannable.

[@Sedona_FD3S]

lots of players tend to optimize the fun out of games.

[@chill9871]

ah yes and then you realised you could defeat all bosses just with the power of friendship.

[@Vrmillion1]

Every job plays differently from each other, and jobs of the same role share gear for the most part. So instead of needing talent trees, you can just change jobs on the fly. Overall it's more fun and more variety imo, and covers the point of talents/builds.

[@diersteinjulien6773]

I'll add, the big advantage of not having builds is, when you have someone with a job you know exactly what kind of gameplay to expect. If you play heal, knowing what kind of tank you have is a pretty huge deal. You don't heal a paladin like a warrior.

[@RaddyC]

@rick mel dragoon will share gear with reaper tho

[@azfar188]

@@RaddyC Thats a win for me

[@Zakon673]

@@RaddyC Also Ninja shares accessories with ranged physical DPS!

[@acidosis1985]

Yup talents builds makes people follow the meta anyways, so whats the point.

[@ichigo9171]

The game is rediculously balanced. We meme on jobs that are like 5% different. Over wow meming on stuff that’s like 40% worse lol.

[@FoxyAreku]

There isn't a job in WoW that is 40% worse. XIV also has less specs and is also highly homogenized so all the classes play the same so it'd be impressive if there were major balance issues with that system.

[@leventekecskemeti4225]

@@FoxyAreku being able to customize more in wow just ends up being optimized the hell out of it and everyone expects the meta from you tho

[@thomascranor2668]

@@FoxyAreku I'd beg to differ. Classes play similar, but not the same. Sure they're not as diverse as they COULD be, but that's kinda the price for accessibility and such a balance that MCU Thanos would cry over it.

[@DreamingTheatric]

@@leventekecskemeti4225 exactly. Illusion of choice. End of the day you can make three warlock specs but everyone wants the one that does the best for little negative tradeoff as well.

[@BoknoyBuhisan]

@@leventekecskemeti4225 and having a meta means the game is not balanced.

[@tciddados]

I enjoy seeing new players' reactions to Copperbell, going "wait, are we really putting down a slave rebellion? I thought I was supposed to be a good guy."

[@TrTai]

Another fun thing is also seeing what people do and don't react to, like some people go through copperbell with the mind of "Well these guys are being violent and causing issue, so of course we have to handle it with force, they're monsters" and others who realize that there's some amount of sentience to these creatures which caused the conflict in the first place.

[@cattysplat]

@@grass23 That quest giver even threatens you saying he will hang your body with your entrails should you fail. The writing can get pretty heavy.

[@andersjepsen1309]

The slave rebellion was put down generations ago, but the giants who were trapped for 300 years would take revenge on those alive today, perhaps not realising the masters are long dead or just blinded by rage. Can't really blame them either way, but what else can you do, let them go out and kill anyone they find or bury them again?

[@PerfectMistfit]

Fun Fact: When you level Black Mage your rotation changes basically every 10 levels

[@belld.s5276]

just wait till he has to manage enochian xD lol.

[@Playerk125]

@@belld.s5276 Me Enocien Drops ....NOOOOOOOO

[@Jake9066]

About the abilities turning off: you get used to it after the 97th time getting Sastasha on a duty roulette on your level 80.

[@PokeBattlerJaze]

Fucking mood

[@extinctbaryonyx]

Lmao. -When your glare and the holiest light spell instantly turn to "throwing pebble" spell- dungeon. God i hate getting dungeon below 50 on roulette 😂

[@J-manli]

@@extinctbaryonyx It's a necessary evil. Since A LOT of dungeons are tied to the MSQ, the leveling roulette is a great way to keep the dungeon population stream flowing smoothly so that lower level players won't have abysmally long que times.

[@Nirual86]

@@extinctbaryonyx at least you no longer need to keep the old spells on your bars for that occasion, they just automatically down or upgrade. For the most part, at least. BLM is still kinda clunky on that front

[@extinctbaryonyx]

@@Nirual86 for some reason my medica 2 and cure 2 didnt get downscale. And i have to manually replace them everytime. Sadge.

[@alexgmello]

People will probably tell you to do the "extreme" version of these trials, so I'll skip this subject. But since you liked dungeons and the stories behind, I suggest you to really do the optional dungeons and the "hard" version of them. And the "hard" isn't just stronger mobs, they change the whole dungeon (from enemies to level design). Some of them have really cool (and morbid) stories, specially the one that involves a dead husband and an adventurer that you "met" in on of your early game cutscenes.

[@Phex1]

Tam-Tara Hard is really awesome. I sadly missed the fact that one of that adventure group joined the scions before the titan twist until then.

[@maiadraconica6488]

carrying around that dead head...

[@KyleKey]

Legitimately terrifying end to the Corpse Groom storyline.

[@hotaruasakura9120]

@@Phex1 Did they? IRRC one of the other two ends up being possesed and killed by you and the other is scared shitless and stops being an adventurer altogether.

[@glenndiddy]

Wait I didnt know that either and Im leveling my 4th job now

[@josephmathews1330]

Dude I love this. Preach’s content fits perfectly with ff14. This reminded me of his videos covering a new expansion or patch in wow. I hope ff keeps his interest.

[@holden_tld]

9:20 "am i doing things correctly? am i being carried? i don't know." literally inspecting the floor

[@Vaguelz]

The level syncing removing abilities definitely varies in how bad it feels depending on your job. There's some that almost have all of their major kit available pre 50, then there are some that are late bloomers. Black Mage is definitely one of the weirdest though because so many of their traits and abilities fundamentally change what spells you priortize casting. Black mage has a different optimal rotation for practically every level bracket. They definitely got it the roughest when it comes to level sync. That being said you do get used to it, even when running as a BLM.

[@psivampire13]

WHM though....when you go from many abilities that you use, to only like 3 that you use.

[@Tyranastrasza]

@@psivampire13 well, you only use Glare, and when synced it's replaced by Stone X. I don't see the difference :)

[@psivampire13]

@@Tyranastrasza I also put Aero on enemies at the start of fights and whenever I have time. And you lose like almost all healing skills except Cure and Cure 2.

[@chaos_ae]

Yea it is definitely a per-class thing. Playing MCH synch feels fine 90% of the time, except those weird levels where you have hypercharge and not heat blast

[@russpc9739]

Id say mostly the shb/sb classes and BLM get rekt by the level sync. My main is dragoon and it feels fine even at lower levels

[@TheFrantic5]

I primarily soloed in WoW, but FFXIV forced me into the deep end with dungeon running. I really love how the game starts with a set of instanced quests (Hall of the novice) and then very slowly ramps up with basic mechanics, and then finally, after completing the base game, it's like "Okay, cool, now you get those tilesets again, but with some new mechanics and your level 50 abilities." It may be tedious to the WoW veterans, but it ensures a much higher level of base competence for the player base.

[@slimfastsubaru2043]

@Colin Deal na just gotta stand in stacked aoes then yell where we're the healz‽?????? Lol

[@shingshongshamalama]

This game takes the time to walk even brand new players up to at least a minimum level of understanding. WoW just kinda drops players in and expects you to git gud or else you suck loser go play a baby game.

[@dirusj4006]

If you complete a fight easily there is a good chance you are doing your job. It is possible to carry bad players but it gets harder to do as you level. Eventually it becomes obvious that at least one did isn't pulling their weight. And this is especially true for tanks and heals.

[@hkoizumi3134]

Exactly. I played the game for 3 years before going using DPS meter. Within those years, you pick up that sixth sense of how well everybody is doing. I believe this is something that everyone should learn because it forces you to pay closer attention to what it's happening. A skill that you will definitely need later on. It may be more difficult for WoW gamers to break away from it. God knows it was for me with Aion. We even used the same program for it lol.

[@sharlockshacolmes9381]

Everybody when going into the game: "Man Lalafells are weird I don't like them." Everybody after going throught 5.0: "Man Lalafells are capitalists sociopaths I don't like them." Everybody after going throught Fantasia surgery: "WHA!!"

[@gateauxq4604]

Lalas-Feeling cute today, might commit a war crime

[@aiellamori]

I used my fantasia to go from a midlander hyur to a highlander hyur

[@glenni83]

Vexy Thundercats here! Was nice playing with you last night Preach. Things changes fast, after lvl 60 and 70. The start of the game, put me in a sleep mode.. I was spaming dungeon last night to get up a White Mage. It was like i had 2 buttons press for 20min. So basicly, later game, you have abour 30 spells that you use in combat. Game takes you in and make you press same button 30.000 times before you get a new one.. so you know what you do on that button. The FC stands still open for you Preach. Balance of most classes are like 0.2% away on the dps in the endgame for most classes. But that is a long road.. I beat the game in 430 hours. Much story. I know for a fact.. you will love the game soon. The nerd lore master will take you into the darkest places of earth. Where you fall for the game. I have played for 6 weeks now.. I felt like at first.. this is not my game.. then it just grabed me by the balls..

[@SnarkyLesbian]

Oh Preach is gonna love Shadowbringers, omega dark as fuck. And yeah, Lalafell are awesome, there are always awesome quests with them, they are done insanely well in terms of world building, and they always discuss murder, betrayal and whoring. They're not children at all. It's mostly the playerbase who really make them that, especially female Lalafell.

[@jong.7944]

Honestly, I thought Stormblood was the dark expansion… so many beaten down and broken people for most of the story. Shadowbringers to me was a much brighter story… like stepping into a much better-written version of TBC. It’s like overflowing with hope and inspiration as a story, although admittedly the nuances with Ascian history become a bit dark I suppose.

[@ryanhamilton99]

@@jong.7944 agreed my boy Raubahn would probably agree as well. All done well though. =)

[@alphadron4073]

@@jong.7944 The issue with Stormblood is that it is, honestly, just not very good. The plot treads all over the place, both figuratively and literally, tonal shifts happen frequently without rhyme nor reason, as does what we're doing. The story also feels vastly incomplete, the Ala Mhigan part is very, utterly single-minded and frankly - boring compared to the storylines in Othard and the Azim Steppe, which in turn feel too short, as they had to share spotlight with another zone half the world away. Plus... there's just too much agency taken away from the player character in it. Some bad guy defeats are stolen from our hands by NPCs (and boy do players hate that, just ask mister "My Power Is All Around you" from Warlords of Draenor), we don't see many, if any, dialogue choices in the expansion, Lyse is boring and shoehorned into positions of importance because... reasons, I guess and the NPCs are hard to care about. Not to mention the infamous redemption arc of a certain woman, which I (and many others, given there's heated debate over it to this day) feel was utterly cheap and unearned. In general... I didn't much like Stormblood and it's plot. Dark or not, it's just not good.

[@SawsePapi]

@@alphadron4073 i quit in stormblood. story was boring af compared to HW. shame but it lost its magic for me

[@mana-azir6808]

@@SawsePapi Stormblood expansion wise had the most content drop and the biggest QoLs introduced into the game. The story i do agree is too spaced out but after having done Shadowbringers and reading the recent Famitsu interview, you can tell the vision Yoshida had for being SB a more "worldbuilding" expansion IMO a good time to try and return to the game

[@heylookitsnana]

BLM suffers arguably the most by the level sync in terms of needing to use a wildly different rotation

[@zantar04]

Have you tried summoner?

[@kosbebot6360]

I actually enjoy having different rotations. Adds some variety while doing roulette. :))

[@cattysplat]

BLM damage is even nerfed, without being able to stack higher than 1-2 stacks of fire/frost, which is the entire mechanic around BLM doing big ramped nukes.

[@Pompadourius]

@@zantar04 As someone who's maxed both SMN and BLM and mains SMN, SMN clicked way faster for me and overall I find to be way easier to get into for optimization, to be honest.

[@taybosa5325]

I have seen this comment a few times which is true and fine. Just can't wait for Endwalker when BLM changes that aspect about themselves.

[@Vashy434]

"how balanced is this game?" Extremely, the most balanced game I have literally ever played. When arguing the best job for each role you are usually arguing in the range of decible points of efficacy.

[@whiskizyo2067]

then why do so many people hate samurai lmao, is all they bring is extra personal damage instead of team buffs but it's balanced well - shouldn't it not matter?

[@Boonoojootoo]

@@whiskizyo2067 the hate towards samurai is mostly a meme at this point; from what I've seen, it's easily the most weeby of the jobs and therefore catches all that meaningless ire. Samurai, Black Mage and Machinist are known as the "selfish dps" because they trade party utility for raw damage. Which would be a problem, but in a game where even your healers are expected to put out numbers to contribute damage, raid utility from other DPS classes, in the form of damage up buffs and so on, serves just as well as selfish dps does. There's no job that doesn't perform when played well; it's so well balanced that the distinction between tiers in the game is based on how FUN they are to play, not how well they perform.

[@MrSquigeon]

@@whiskizyo2067 cause it's the easiest melee job to pick up so it attracts lots of avergae players that don't maximise the jobs potential DPS.

[@whiskizyo2067]

@@Boonoojootoo i mean its beyond a meme if some people/groups turn you down because your a samurai - funny thing is someone commented a group full of samurais probably do more than a spread group that gives minor group buffs. *shrugs*

[@quelzar]

It's very good optimized but not 'decible points of efficacy' when you compare top 1 spec to worst. Just take a look at logs lol. Difference is still like 10% when comparing Black Mage to Machinist or Bard. However all jobs are viable. Also it's easier to balance jobs when there is no talent tree and some kind of 'systems' that exist in WoW. You basically have abilities cut in stone so its easier to give some dps there, take some dps from other class

[@arcanedeity5559]

I'm glad that you're giving the game a genuine try. The Dark Knight quest line is HIGHLY recommended. Take care and continue having fun!

[@Gravewhisper]

hopefully someone will tell him, that there's a hard mode of almost every dungeon in ARR that has an updated story and is vastly different. He'd probably really enjoy those.

[@AshtonMonitor]

Especially Tam-Tara, and then there’s the way it ties into PotD

[@Nemora44]

Some of my favorite parts about this game are the Trials. They all generally have great music, fun mechanics and very clear cut phases. I especially love how sometimes a phase change will take you out of the fight for a brief moment while the boss will charge up some super move and whether or not you dealt with a prior mechanic correctly will determine if you get to actually see the next phase or if you will just wipe.

[@pupax2000]

I honestly do not miss dmg meters. I use it sometimes, mostly in start of an expansion if classes have been changed a lot, to optimize myself. I found that WoW takes min/maxing to the extreme, where even in casual content, people are stressing to do 100% all of the time, getting annoyed with each other. Measuring each other purely by numbers. It makes everything feel like a competition and a chore. I like that the whole min maxing is reserved for private groups and savage raids, where it belongs. You can chillax and have a great time in dungeons and raids, doing your best, but without getting toxic and stressed about it. Fousing more on teamplay and camaraderie. It does take a while to get used to though, coming from WoW. You might come to love it!

[@Shiirow]

imagine running through Deadmines (Lv 15 dungeon) with a DPS meter and posting it after every trash pull to gloat and trash talk people. actual real in game experience with another player.

[@a_tired_dad]

I've had zero need for a DMG meter doing normal raids, a few savages and extreme trials at level 80 on party finder. I'd get one for guild/FC progression tho.

[@chrys_stone8716]

I just run my meter to see if I'm doing my job correctly lol

[@fusionstorm8201]

When I started playing FF14 I just applied the logic that if a guy on ps3 is clearing this wihout addons, I dont need them either ( no offence to console players I actually think that you guys are gods for doing the same stuff on a controller).

[@FirelighttheKing]

@@fusionstorm8201 I cry about no ACT all the time ;; I’m a ps4 player, and I avoid playing dps roles specifically because I stress about not pulling my weight. On the other hand, though, I can usually tell how the dps is doing just by the timing of the kills/ hp% and I already get irritated with others for that. I know roughly how most jobs work, too, so I can watch the skills they use, and work out from that if their dps is gear-appropriate. Being able to tell that you are out dpsing melee as a healer is like :/ without act, there’s doubt in my mind. With act, I’d probably lose my mind

[@rOvertJustice]

Qarn is particularly memorable for people since many end up getting one-shot at least once by the crazy wasps with their Final Sting kamikaze attack. I returned recently after 4 years of not playing and I instantly remembered how I thought I died for no reason during that dungeon.

[@nahuel3433]

It's like the only early level dungeon that actually has mechanics

[@kitethetwinblade]

Quarn has also been nerfed to hell (normal and hard mode) and they also removed Final Sting's instant-kill effect for Quarn, due to people complaining it was too hard. They also adjusted the Adjudicator fight, to where it's just, dodge until boss dead, instead of the mechanics that required you to go into the enclosed areas, kill the lasers, drag the heads to the glowing tiles - those things are all still there, they just aren't necessary to actually kill boss anymore.

[@nahuel3433]

@@kitethetwinblade I mean final sting can still be pretty deadly. Especially if you do a decently sized pull and the healer is having some trouble keeping up. The bees in the crowd can fuck you up. The boss stuff is true though.

[@ovum]

I think the more jumpscare Dungeon is Neverreap. Even without minimum ilvl, the mobs still hit hard and the bees. The goddamn bees. Even if the healer is awake, there is MORE THAN ONE bee that will fire Final Sting nearly at once. Next second, tank is dead

[@sweatygoblin2335]

Final Sting has been terrifying since FFXI. Imagine getting nuked by a bee and losing a level from it. The shame.

[@LeonardisseYT]

Cool that you are overall enjoying XIV, I hope you stay around, ARR is can be a bit of a slog early on but stick with it and you'll be amazed, most of the things you didn't like are gone in heavensward and the things you do like are turned up to eleven. Hope to see ya in Eorzea ^^

[@MBEG89]

Its absolutely crazy how much better the game gets towards the end of ARR.

[@tommenno]

Preach played vanilla/classic, ARR is no worse then those really.

[@Skyblade12]

The one thing that isn’t improved upon is dungeon design. The puzzle type dungeons that Preach loves get phased out more and more as time goes on.

[@LeonardisseYT]

@@Skyblade12 Yes sadly, though I feel they could focus a lot more on the spectacle of things as a result, specially in stormblood, more a preference thing but I do miss the more open design in dungeons aswell

[@benoitrousseau4137]

@@tommenno I dunno, I don't think ARR is that bad, but I think it's worse than Classic WoW in many regards. Classic WoW was big on exploration and freedom, and because it's much more open-world instead of instance-based, you also had more opportunities to make friends while questing because the world was much more dangerous.

[@Orih9]

Regarding balance: FFXIV is, as you assume, very well balanced for the most part. It's not quite a perfect balance as the game isn't without flaw, but for the most part, there's never really been an "unplayable" job in the game's history at any stage of gameplay. Even during a few scenarios where some of the jobs were at their worst, such as when Astrologian was first introduced and lacked the healing potencies to keep up with the other healers, it was still very capable of clearing content. There's also a bit of nuance between jobs as well. For example, between casters, Black Mage is incredibly strong and offers a fair amount more damage than Red Mage, yet Red Mage has very helpful utility in the ability to instantly revive allies without a cooldown. This means Red Mage may end up helping teams progress through new challenges more than a Black Mage's damage will, yet once that fight is learned, the Black Mage can help successive clears go faster. In my experience not having a static for anything, it's very very rare for a team to bar a specific job from entry other than the 1 player per job rule. I clear things at a more casual pace myself, so it's possible it could be more restrictive in the earlier days of savage raiding as certain teams might want a specific job or two to mixmax their clear chances. Ultimately, there are balance discussions that pop up all the time, as there will always be small or moderate balance issues that can be worth correcting, but in the big picture, the game overall feels incredibly well-balanced most of the time.

[@ianlindstrom2019]

Balance in 2.x and 3.x was off *enough* that teams would strongly prefer certain jobs, but with no cross-server play until late 3.x the field of available players wasn't deep enough to make it worth being picky. The worst case was 2.0 WAR which was a tank with no mitigation, so people often ran 2x PLD. Or MRD and PLD, since MRD had the same mit as WAR (none) but at least brought extra damage cooldowns from the old cross-class system. Every expansion gets more balanced than the last, and these days there are only a small handful of considerations. First, one player per job if running content where you need LB. Second, avoid double ranged if you can (though it's still viable) due to its very slightly lower damage output. Third, prefer RDM/SMN over BLM for the first caster slot due to availability of raise, unless specifically doing speed/parse runs where it won't matter either way. Fourth, RDM only boosts physical damage with its buff, so it avoids strongly magical comps if possible (e.g. second caster, DRK, PLD, NIN). This RDM avoidance is no stronger than the double ranged avoidance, so not a big deal. The "meta" in FFXIV is weaker than any other MMO I've ever played, by a lot, so most teams just cobble together whoever they can find that they can stand to raid with, jobs be damned. The no-repeat-jobs rule is probably the one people pay most attention to, and even that is broken by some speed/parse teams.

[@Enclave.]

@@ianlindstrom2019 Speaking as a tank who did Coil back in the early days before the Warrior buff? It was perfectly doable, just wasn't as easy. Paladin was absolutely easy mode and back then I actually found PLD kinda boring, it was a big part of why I went Warrior then.

[@cks796]

The closest I've seen a job being unplayable was MCH back in Stormblood. You had to have good ping and make sure you took almost zero skill speed or else your abilities clipped. However, that was the only time that I've seen a job become close to unplayable due to design.

[@linhle8294]

*cries in Blue Mage*

[@ridleyroid9060]

@@cks796 stormblood MCH wasnt unplayable lol, it was just a high skill gap job. I knew some god tier mch who busted ass in SB.

[@Lancun]

I can't wait to see Mike's reaction when he finds out that Hard mode isn't just a harder difficulty but a complete retooling of the same dungeon. It's going to blow his mind.

[@kimaclaret]

I just finished Shadowbringers, and I didn't know 😮😅

[@Siluriiformes]

Also, they are only called hard mode because they are lvl 50 versions of early dungeons like lvl 15 satasha. Its not actually hard at all. XD

[@Lancun]

@@Siluriiformes I mean you say that, but almost everyone has wiped to Stone Vigil hardmode.... Not that the turtle is actually hard, it's just that vehicle combat is the bane of many players' existence.

[@WakiTheCroc]

@@Lancun We've also all wiped to Haukke Manor Hard... because our gear is too fucking good lmao.

[@atinygoose6199]

Right on all counts. The main reason ffxiv has no talents, and has gear split into 6 distinct categories (Tank, healer, light melee, heavy melee, caster, ranged physical) is that this way all they need to balance for is class abilities. And it works, as each class is extremely well balanced for endgame. For instance, black mage/samurai do the single highest dps in the game, no question, but that's all they bring. Dancer does the single lowest damage in the game by a mile, but brings -huge- buffs like old shaman's in WoW, so picking 2 black mages or a black mage and a dancer tend to level out to the same, it's just the dancer will do 25% of the party's damage but buff the black mage to ridiculous dps. I never once missed talents, not once, because to me it was always just a case of googling what's best and using it, so I was never really choosing talents. And because I can play any job on any character, if we get to a fight where ranged suffer, I can just jump to melee. If I know i'm gonna be paired up with a white mage, the healer with minimal shields, I can swap to scholar, the healer with minimal healing but mega shielding. It's great. Black mage is...a weird one to level admittedly. It doesnt quite feel complete until 50, but changes at 60, and 70, and 80 quite drastically, wheras most classes just gradually add complexity but keep the core elements relatively similar.

[@KlockoArt]

On the point of talents, I agree with you for sure. One thing I do like about talents in wow, especially classic, is that it kinda drip feeds you rewards and power gains as you level up. 1% crit here, a new cool ability there. The thing is, XIV doesn't really need to do that in general, because it still does the whole drip feeding you rewards thing, just in a different way.

[@ArmageddonEvil]

@rick mel Super unfriendly, while you can have everything on one character if you don't want to create a new one. But I am crazy and I went through Pre-ARR Revamp 4 times and Post-ARR Revamp once.

[@Noryll1327]

Something to note is that the damage difference isn't that large either. If Black Mage is doing 100% of it's damage, a Dancer is doing like 80% of it with 10-15% in raid buffs while giving the Black Mage a permanent 5% damage buff for being it's dance partner. Also support classes like Dancer, Bard, and Red Mage tend to have more defensive utility as well. Red Mages can instant cast rez on demand. Bard has a raid wide defensive, the only non healer with a purify, and a single target healing received buff. Dancer has a raid healing buff, a raid defensive, and an AoE heal from them and their dance partner. It's super well done, where if you want to pretty much just pump damage at the top of the meters you can go BLM or SAM. But if you don't mind dealing a little less personal damage, you can go for something like Bard or Dancer for the utility and support. Or even something in between like Summoner or Ninja that has a bit of both worlds.

[@jervic7997]

Quick correction: There are 7 armor types. Three of them are for melee. Heavy armor for Dragoons and (with Endwalker) Reapers, Strength based Medium for Samurai and Monks, and Dex based Light armor for Ninja.

[@zynix3698]

All healers are balanced but 50% of the fight is also just pressing one button. I'll take talents or whatever will make healing interesting again.

[@Dracold77]

A few notes: You can actually tell your damage in relation to the other DPS; the Bars in the party-frame show the aggro, if you're constantly last, you *might* be doing something wrong. This does of course not tell you much, but it's at leats an indicator. Concerning Talent trees: Yes, the game is ridiculously balanced in comparison. What helped me, is to actually think of the different jobs within a role, as speccs; that's where you'll find most similarities, since there are role-specific actions for one. I've rambled enough, have fun ;)

[@flipboy420]

Yeah the threat bars are a good indicator of where your damage is relative to the party. I wonder if preach has noticed them yet.

[@Fordster1994]

only thing to keep in mind when looking at that for reference is while yes there is a lvl sync it isnt perfect it works but you arent going to keep up with a high lvl dps getting synced down

[@Dracold77]

@@Fordster1994 Yup, as said, it only helps as sort of a reference, but such deviations of course need to be kept in mind^^ You are absolutely right

[@rosco3]

Kind of hard to measure your own improvement though. But tbh, just use a dps meter, don't be a dick about it to other people if they're not doing a lot of damage and it's fine

[@dsan17]

@@Fordster1994 From what I've experienced, a high lvl synced down is like playing with someone on BiS+penta melded for that specific level, so you may have the same ilvl but they still have way more stats.

[@andrewshandle]

Preach, I imagine others have told you this, but pickup a second job. Out leveling the MSQ means you kind of just waste XP, you can level up 3 jobs in just a bit more time than it take to level 1 on your way to 50. Grab a tank, healer or a melee DPS to try other stuff too. Especially if you like dungeons, you can do a "Daily Roulette" with your Healer to instantly queue pop (or a very short queue on a Tank) in a Dungeon and get like 4 levels.

[@alhassani23]

I really thought you were telling him that KZbin wasn't working out and he needed to start looking elsewhere.

[@detheccus1132]

I mean... he can but not like there's not an abundance of exp after you're done with MSQ between roulettes PoTD and the occasional levequest

[@CaitSithDubh]

@@alhassani23 Hah, aye, I could see how that first sentence could be read like that! "Don't quit your day job". But yeah, the second FF job is a good point.

[@tomasjonsson7141]

How do you pick up second jobs? Im a lvl 55 conjurer and i outlevled the MSQ becaus the levling roulet dungeons are so fun and i get instant ques and a healer =)

[@beschdeBeth]

@@tomasjonsson7141 go to the guild of the job u want and talk to the receptionist there

[@brittca]

Preach, this video gave me so much joy! To see you so happy again... to watch you go through the process of exploring FFXIV... it's awesome! Thank you for these videos and keep having fun :)

[@BobMerlinx]

Watching your streams (currently on day 3) while at work. (Currently sitting in a reception with basically no visitors, so I spend my time on KZbin and Twitch). Perfect content to enjoy during the days, so I hope you keep going through the expansions!

[@luminous2585]

Qarn is one of my favorite low level dungeons. And I agree it feels a bit iffy that you can't use all your abilities while synched down, though you also get abilities that you haven't unlocked yet in content where you're synched up. However, the simple truth of the matter is that we're already too strong with gear synched at the cap for that dungeon and all the little buffs that came over the years. If someone with their full kit already unlocked joined in a low level roulette they'd just destroy the enemies completely, and a low level player would absolutely feel like they're being carried and barely contribute. The devs put great effort into making old content feel at least somewhat relevant. I believe their plans for the next expansion also include updates to some of the final story content of ARR (2.0) so it won't be as laughably easy anymore.

[@badtiming2208]

In what instance do you get synced up? I've never had that happen to me ever.

[@56Bagels]

@@badtiming2208 he might be referring to Palace of the Dead? It exists in Bozja as well, a level 71+ zone, but you only unlock it at max level anyway.

[@cas6382]

@@56Bagels Yeah you can level your alt jobs in Bozja though so its neat they sync you up to 80 to get to everything and try it out as you level

[@Enderlinkpawnu]

I am just imagine being able as a Machinist to use Drill in low level dungeons like Satasha. I don’t think the bosses in low level dungeons would survive if someone was running around with a very fast 700 potency cooldown.

[@yvesdelrosario566]

I mean even taking into account some jobs that are really OP in low levels like RDM or DNC, can you even imagine how more faceroll-y the lower level dungeons will get with everyone’s full kit?

[@baconbankai]

I feel like talent trees are often the illusion of choice and people just often pick X because X gives more damage. Or even in the cases where "oh I use X for running this specifically". Then your still not really making a choice. Often resources are spent trying to balance talents when in reality 99% of people will just pick the talents a guide tells them to.

[@fediriahi3835]

Even if you have a clear talent setup for each type of content, that still gives your character some gameplay variety. So even this "illusion" of choice ends up spicing the gameplay’ not equally from class to class but still some is better than none for me.

[@bran4457]

While that's sort of true, talent trees also change up the style of how you play. For example, Shadow Priest has both an AOE and single target talent setup. Combine this with legendaries which are either "single target" or "AOE" centered and there is plenty of variety for each individual class. Also the CC and movement options in each talent tree are way different from one another which adds more choice.

[@coldrunfinalfantasy5545]

As far as the whole "having to change your playstyle sometimes when you sync down," I agree. Most jobs tend to mitigate this pretty well by automatically upgrading or downgrading certain things, but I find black mage to be the toughest in this regard by far. It's the only job where I actively maintain both a sub-50 and post-50 keybind set.

[@BubblyBoar]

As much as I love FFXIV and BLM, I refuse to do anything below level 40 on it. That means never EVER touching leveling roulette with it.

[@AdrasAdraki]

Getting synced in arr as a drg and losing your 1 aoe feels soooo bad.

[@skylarsimes8]

@@BubblyBoar theres an option on roulette that only puts you in dungeons 8 lvls below you.max. "limited lvling roulette"

[@TheAssirra]

so glad it does the auto ranking thing now. I remember before you had to keep your low rank spells...somewhere on your bars to switch when you get level synced down.

[@Marekthejester]

@@skylarsimes8 This option only works as a premade party

[@KayaFiend14]

BLM is a mess with a rotation that changes every 5 levels for awhile. Once you get Fire IV at lvl 60, it starts getting much smoother and synergetic.

[@hijikata530]

Yep! I'm honestly a little bummed that enochian is getting baked into the astral/umbral phases for EW, I love that constant feeling of not wanting to drop it and screw your damage. Oh well, we will see how it plays out with the new skills addition for BLM.

[@acidosis1985]

and when BLM have triple cast....HOHOHO

[@stolas3345]

@@hijikata530 I mean, if you drop it you still screw your damage, it's gonna work the same except you have one less weird button to press once in a fight or whenever you mess up

[@qamarqammar7629]

Qarn is a mini-masterpiece of early MMO dungeon design. So glad you are enjoying it.

[@Dremerion]

There are some optional things you can turn on for hopping in to the raids later, such as being scaled to have the worst allowable gear going in, just as if the raid was freshly released

[@BlitzAce987]

While the game isn't perfectly balanced, compared to wow it might aswell be. Every Single Job is 100% Viable at end game (As long as you are using normal party comositions of 2 tanks 2 healers 4 DPS outside of that some jobs get less viable) As for the "Game is getting better" Point It's designed and developed with the mindset of "It could be someones very first video game" in which case it's a lot better slowly drip feeding skills and gradually ramping up complexity One way of telling how well you are doing on DPS is the Aggro meters. in the party frame just underneath everyones job icon is a little bar and number displaying how much threat everyone has, doesn't give an exact DPS Value but gives you something relative to the other DPS of a group

[@lukeluckynblue1873]

Last time wow was perfectly balanced expansion was called Mists of pandaria :D

[@dkapow]

1.0 had a lot of customization, but the problem was that players would optimize and then punish others for not using the optimization.

[@Nightstalker314]

@@lukeluckynblue1873 DPS range nowadays isn't too far off from MoP levels.

[@Nightstalker314]

Every spec in WoW can be played in Mythic progression as long as you don't look at the top100 or so.

[@Finicky9]

I mean I want to play devil advocate and say that in wow end game you can play any class and spec in the normal compositions too, its once you add wow world first mythic levels of dps checks that the balance becomes apparent, and that often trickles down to casual content. The biggest difference is that wow has massive multipliers that often break the game balance, where as ffxiv have zero damage multipliers other than your stats and even they get scaled in a lot of content.

[@Miss_Xhiel]

"How balanced is this game?" The greatest difference between DPS of the same category is 2%. Or less. That's how balanced it is.

[@dank_jenkins]

Love how detailed and balanced these videos have been so far, they go by quickly! Looking forward to the rest!

[@seekittycat]

The boss you don't attack is really about trying to teach the player to observe the monsters more. The bomb enemy explodes and you can use it to damage enemies so it's important the player learns killing everything isn't the only win condition. To me it's especially relevant to raids where people sometimes need to pay attention to adds.

[@gwenmh]

FFXIV used to have job customization in the form of cross-class skills....which were ass because, like WoW, there was never a real choice to be made and you were forced to level up other jobs just to play your main job. Leveling also sucked a lot back then, I stopped playing Sch in ARR because I didn't want to grind THM for swiftcast...

[@andrewshandle]

That sounds dreadful, I'm glad they removed that.

[@-rayzer--wolf-6474]

@@andrewshandle it was and heres an even worse example Warrior one of the tanks didnt have a taunt usless it leveled as a Gladiator to get the skill you could have a Max level Tank in your party without a Taunt button because the game didnt require you to go get it

[@bosinclaire7670]

@@andrewshandle Yep it really was ughh.. Wanna be a tank and have a instant taunt (provoke) level paladin up.. Want some core defences? level paladin. You don't like paladin? enjoy being a weaker/shit tank.. So glad it got removed. Was a fun idea in theory, but just didn't work out and devs realized it wasn't liked and improved it..

[@ArmageddonEvil]

@@-rayzer--wolf-6474 I remember hearing that in Larryzaur's history of ARR video.

[@andrewshandle]

​@@bosinclaire7670 lol, wow. Sounds horrible. Got to say, I really like the "Role Skills" even though I was confused when I first saw it. Makes it easy to swap to different Jobs of the same role because you can just put them in the same keybinds. It made it super easy when I picked up Dark Knight when a bunch of skills and keybinds were identical to that of my Paladin. Same with when I loved Scholar and already had a White Mage.

[@Arlacent]

Talent trees- aka the illusion of choice until you're bullied into a meta.

[@rallysixx3550]

For some the talents change when doing different content, and may even change from encounter to encounter. It’s offers differing gameplay when swapping, rather than the same 12 ability rotation (which is dictated by the meta as well so….?)

[@characterantula4868]

I see so many people complain about meta builds in wow. Its an entire sub community of players at this point. I have never understood why people who want to play "what they like" instead of the "meta" dont just all group together and complete content themselves while playing how they like?

[@rallysixx3550]

@@characterantula4868 because its incredibly inefficient and they dont want to deal with the extra problems that it will cause. they want to "play whatever they want" in a group where everyone else is playing the meta, so the run goes as fast and smooth as possible. And ofc its not just WoW, the same meta mindset happens in high end content of nearly every game.

[@lorospact]

As for how balanced it is, the answer is 'Very'. Every class is viable in Endgame, and contributes well. Instead of talent trees, there's the ability to swap jobs to try out different roles and mechanics.

[@liamward8247]

It also requires a skill level of 1 to play endgame content and the combat is so lacklustre it's impossible to play

[@Highyeena]

And even if you look at like fflogs where some perform slightly worse (like dancer and bard) that's ignoring that dancer and bard buff other DPS and even ignoring that the groups dps is only different by like 2% max most of the time lol

[@Sharksterfly]

@@liamward8247 grow up.

[@jacobmech1]

@@liamward8247 hmm yet mythic raiders that come to 14 have said that ultimate fights are extremely difficult...

[@GeneralTheritt]

@@liamward8247 You obviously haven't ever played NIN or even touched savage content. If its a skill level of 1, why is Triple Legend considered a big feat? Why is Delubrum Reginae Savage cleared so little there's an actual tracker of parties that have successfully acquired a cerberus? What about Necromancer in Palace of the dead? And you mean to tell me its so easy because of... what? What makes a class easy? What are you defining as easy? WoW has its difficulties, many MMOs do, you need to particularly look in how that difficulty is- WoW difficulty is about number management less so than positions, and what effectiveness your class brings to the table. FFXIV is like weaving a dance, being sure to watch unpredictability and maintain focus. GW2 is about understanding hitframes and knowing various combinations for class attacks and combinations since there's so many different effects, DoTs, and HoTs you can apply just from different weapon combos. Also, if the game is "Impossible to play" then isn't that a difficulty to overcome? That by definition is early difficulty through patience. If it was so easy why don't you ask Quin69 to please retry the game. You're saying wide, varying statements with no substance other than "Its easy but also its so easy I can't play the game". Josh Strife Hays breaks that down as a quitting moment, but you're not giving substance that its easy to understand but hard to master, you're just saying its easy because you played for 5 levels. I'd love to engage on a discussion in this, because Lorospact was quite curteous and explained that variance the game provides, something WoW and other talent tree based games do not.

[@temjiu9915]

One of the biggest progress walls is in Vanilla: lots of level cap MSQ to do before you can unlock the first expansion. It's good story, but it's allot more then all the other end game MSQ treks. So if I were to recommend any specific boost, I'd pick the boost from vanilla to the first expansion, Heavensward. Also, for new players or those who have never played, in the Inn room (available to everyone), you can rewatch every cutscene in the game. So you won't "experience" any content you skipped, but you an at least watch it an know whats happening, and there's allot that happens in the story.

[@anounyoumissed4073]

Love this video, it’s cool seeing such an insightful perspective from a new player. Others have talked a lot about what to expect going forward and explained more on the oddities of low levels so I won’t get into it. Hopefully people continue to see videos like this and get a chance to experience all the cool things this game has to offer!

[@Siiromo]

I also levelled BLM to start (still my favorite job to play!) and I'll say that it's probably the most egregious about having to relearn your rotation when syncing down. Due to the nature of BLM's traits allowing procs and different QoL things, it has WILDLY different rotations and priorities to focus on depending on the level of content you're running. I've gotten about half the jobs to 80 by now and none of them have as much awkward pains as my main when syncing down. I think it's a wonderful Job and I'm glad to see you playing it and enjoying it, but it's worth keeping in mind that it's the one with the worst feeling when experiencing that level sync.

[@JulianSkies]

The joke around my friends is that BLM is a different job every 10 levels. (similar to how SMN is a different job every expansion)

[@Breadumi]

I'll just add that BLM is the single most affected job by the level sync system across all aspects of the game. Playing it in a leveling dungeon is usually torturous aside from the handful near the end of shadowbringers after you acquire a particular trait. No other class is affected on a fundamental level like that. They get bells and whistles just like BLM does, and there are some awkward level ranges, but it's much easier to work around.

[@michaelcunditt674]

Yeah. By far Black mage is the worse job affected by level sync. Dued to the fact that other jobs get evolutions for your spells and traits, but BLM just get a new spell that changes the complete rotation. Preach should try other jobs as well. Since he is into casters he should go for Red mage when he gets to 50. Since Summoner will be a complete different job in endwalker.

[@MythrilZenith]

I'm trying to get my blm leveled, almost 60 now and I've already had to relearn it 3 times. Before astral fire 3 it was about using the swap ability, then after it was about never using the swap except after flare, and now it's introducing enochian and I'm still trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with Blizzard 4. Fun job though

[@EdBurke37]

The meme with Black Mage is that the rotation changes every 10 levels. So have fun with that.

[@LeicaFleury]

Lv 60+ BLM is awesome but below that threshold its a hot mess lol

[@scaldcrowe]

am leveling blm, can confirm

[@Tsugandate]

Floor Inspector is a really good name, have you considered playing dragoon? Melee is very different from casters though, but if you want a caster that feels more straightforward than BLM and without a vastly different rotation every 10 lvls, you should try red mage once you reach lvl 50, it's a great job and it starts at lvl 50, on top of sharing its gear with other caster jobs, and it also tends to inspect the floor quite often while you're getting used to Displacement.

[@katarh]

"En guarde!" (proceeds to yeet self off the arena)

[@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302]

@@katarh Can confirm, there's certain fights I can't use it at all out of risk of yeeting myself. (Looking at you cloud deck).

[@skeletonwar4445]

@@thisismyyoutubecommentacco6302 Yeah I found out you can fall off Suzaku thanks to my trusty suicude flip

[@oddfox_6530]

I'm so glad you're having a good time with it! You give a really fair and balanced perspective on the game. I look forward to the new developments especially once you hit up the alliance raids.

[@IRumburakI]

Just look at this ancient 20 years old aesthetics game. The absolute low corps push us to. And you must know 9/10 people who are praising FFXIV have never seen any other MMO their entire life, in many case they haven't seen any other game. A quality standard at its finest.

[@Zakon673]

I've been around since EQ1, a game that actually is over 20 years old. I think FFXIV looks fine and is the best MMO out there right now, lol.

[@DeathMetaI]

12:35 "you don't use the old spell anymore." Keep in mind, there are no redundant damage abilities in FFXIV. You will use everything in a rotation.

[@LordKaguras]

Even scathe? :D

[@PsychoticGengar]

What's the point of talent trees when everyone finds the optimal way and picks that anyways. May as well not bother with the trees anyway. Ffxiv does amazingly without

[@FoxyAreku]

Changing what you use based on the situation is what they're for. There's not a spec in WoW that doesn't change their talent use based on the content they're doing-XIV is too easy to need something like this though, so that's true at least, but having other builds just for variety would sure be nice.

[@pezdispencer113]

While GW2 does have a tree system, with the elite specialisation my condo DD is basically a separate job from my power DE. Job swapping is basically the same thing.

[@migueltucabron]

I mean that's true for certain talent rows but I would argue that they are just designed poorly in the first place. In other talent rows it's completely different and you have to switch the talents for the situation for maximum damage.

[@twelvesevven4678]

Because the designers decide what's the best thing, and 'the best thing' can be 'the best things' which can be 'everything works'. The designers could have a talent tree if they also wanted to put in the work to balance content around them. It allows more customisation and personalisation of players' characters.

[@pezdispencer113]

@@FoxyAreku I don't know how it is now, but when I used to play wow it charged you through the teeth any time you respected , so nobody ever really did it. Which made the talent trees not that different to traits once you go past the initial choosing process.

[@peterliu9135]

Black Mage unfortunately is one of those classes that don't make sense before like level 60 or even higher. But it does get so much fun and smooth af at 80.

[@glenndiddy]

My dragoon played like absolute dogs bollocks until midway through heavensward. That was a rough leveling time

[@hexi1722]

@@glenndiddy came here to say just that, dragoon also suffers badly utill lv50 then it starts to smooth out. After level 60 it's golden though

[@peterliu9135]

@@glenndiddy SAME, I started with lancer and had to change to samurai midway because I was so bored. It's not until way after I finished HW then I picked up dragoon again. Edit: spelling

[@TS-rm3zs]

super stoked to see you giving this game a try. Just completed stormblood yesterday. You have a LOT to look forward to. GL HF!

[@Thegeneticsjunkie]

You just got your hair done the last time I watched one of your videos. It's looking fucking great man!

[@highbrow-stonebender]

I love that you are loving this game so far, because it only keeps getting better. You are in their weakest offering of content, which is *still* the content they used to redeem their failed launch and win back player trust. By the time you get up to current content you will understand why the Final Fantasy franchise is a Japanese national treausure.

[@mebrandonb]

I know others are probably screaming this at you, but I'd highly suggest leveling up some other jobs while working on the msq. You will significantly out level the msq quickly, and any story stuff you do will just be wasted xp. I only started playing about 2 months ago and just finished Shadowbringers, and I got 6 different jobs to 80 as well as several other jobs to 50-70 just by bouncing between them while working on msq.

[@jlava91]

Id highly recommend doing this as well. I started doing this in Stormblood after being lvl 70 while quests were for mid 60s still. Leveled another job to continue with the MSQ and wish I had done it sooner in earlier expansions. Playing multiple jobs has been so much more fun.

[@ironer100]

I tested a 1 class dungeon, 1 class quests on a character until the end of ARR that can leave you with a few road blocks at level 39, 43, 47 and 49, but that’s where i’m at, can’t speak further… HOWEVER… i hit lvl 70 on an other alt that had 4 jobs… yes 70 on all of them… and i just started heavensward… road to 70 + roulette diligence is crazy… i guess 2 classes and a good number of roulette can do it, if you don’t do it, you end like my main short at level 79 with like 30 000 xp missing XD

[@Jaja-mh6py]

A lot of the dungeons have hard modes too that are totally different but in the same setting. The manor for example has a hard mode and you go through different parts of the manor and it has a different color palettes and bosses etc.

[@dafire9634]

I think they stopped doing hard dungeons in ARR because the casuals and the crafters complained

[@RiseInAfterlife]

@@dafire9634 Hard for ARR dungeons unlock after ARR and in HW, HW dungeons also have some hard modes when you're in SB. They certainly did not 'die' but are just way less important than the ones at 50 cause those would be the ones you run on lv.50 roulette all the time.

[@Siluriiformes]

@@dafire9634 They did hard dungeons because ARR had 3 dungeons per patch compared to HW 2 per patch, SB 1~2 per patch and ShB 1 per patch. They did 3 per patch in ARR because the other systems were not mature enough to warrant content (no relic zone for example) so they just spent all their time on dungeons.

[@lordcorgi6481]

Lalafell are like that alien creature you meet on an alien planet that is super cute until it bears it's teeth and you realize it's the alpha predator of the entire alien world.

[@Ten_]

Really appreciate the videos Preach! Good Luck with black mage! I just levelled mine to max and found the rotation changes every 5-7 levels ish, so you'll be busy working those out :)

[@Xbob42]

"Raiding is my favorite thing in the whole world." *Emma did not like that.*

[@Andy_val]

Tbh I completely forgot that talent trees were a thing very shortly after I made the transition to FF. Also don't really miss them, if anything the lack of that kind of customisablility helps prevent 'meta' or 'cookie cutter' class choice from being a problem in this game (like it was endemic in WoW). Hope you continue to enjoy your time here in Eorzea 😄

[@SaintBernardly]

holy shit, his talk on talent trees made me realize that's what they do in exploration content. insane. glad you're having a good time mate! p.s. you saying you're not sure if you're contributing when playing a black mage is absolutely hilarious lol

[@cashnelson2306]

he'll likely feel that way even at endgame lol the notion of pure-dps classes with no utility is totally alien to wow

[@AlexVriairu]

Much more fun video to watch didn't have any of the flying memes I saw in the other one... not sure which is normal but I prefer this kind, and glad your enjoying yourself.

[@maks4285]

For every Trial, make sure to crank the music. It all winds up being amazing. Glad to hear you're having a great experience playing. Don't be afraid to experiment with changing your job around or learning another job on your character - they're all great with job specific quest lines! Even the crafters and gatherers!

[@johaa]

one thing i love about the dungeons is the hard modes are not just harder versions of the dungeons but and entirly different dungeon in the same setting :D

[@cujoway]

Theyre not in any way harder lol

[@johaa]

@@cujoway could say they are due to them being higher levels but yeah I agree not really harder pre say

[@cujoway]

@@johaa it's a real shame theres no elite versions of all dungeons. Never had a dungeon I couldn't pull wall to wall with paladin

[@johaa]

@@cujoway yeah put that the paladin for you 🙂

[@VorpalTiger]

copperbell mines how ever poorly it might have seemed, was teaching you that interactions with other mobs can complete a mechanic to make a boss vulnerable, in this case, the bomb enemies that spawn need to have the AOE hit the slime, to split enough times to where you can kill them.

[@Wilaeus]

What other times are there where mob aoes damage a boss? I'm almost to ShB and Copperbell Mines is the only dungeon I can remember seeing that happen in. Most of the time if a mob appears and does an AOE, it doesn't hurt bosses I think

[@TerryVideoZone]

@@Wilaeus not necessarily the exact same type of interaction, but in raids like say, binding coil turn 8 and 9 there are moments where you need to think carefully about how certain adds will interact with other elements of the raid lest you wipe horribly and painfully.

[@nenyia6707]

i unsubbed from wow, and i now have a level 51 bard, i found the game so friendly i love it

[@blltsrrfrnd]

Congrats on the change and welcome to the family!

[@stefannedevski6760]

Same! And god I love how it is first rpg and then mmo! And no talent tries with so many skill and complex rotations is not needed.

[@davidsabillon5182]

Hey man have you tried playing music? I'm a bard but I don't have a musical bone in my body lol

[@GLOCKRIVERSTV]

Funny stuff -- I went from WoW and jumped on swtor for the 1st time since its release -- having fun!

[@felixvelariusbos]

new bard main friend new bard main friend~! welcome to bard fam, where we have excellent hats and lutes and harps and bagpipes built into the bow because really...do you want to leave home without your bagpipe?

[@supermix8181]

I love hearing your thoughts as you progress through game, looking forward to the next one (Gold saucer??) 😁

[@TsarLuna]

Thanks for giving this game a red hot crack and shining some more light on it, you're the best Preach.

[@east3rcat]

When you finish base ARR, it sounds like you will love trying the Coils of Bahamut. I’d suggest using party finder if you want to try this synced. Personally, I and 3 other friends did this unsynced just because we were concerned about finding others in duty finder. Not only does Coils have some hard fights, but it’ll also add some story context.

[@captaintweet4221]

And it also important for Alisaie development

[@AuspexAO]

I still think Suramar was the best story content WoW has ever offered. I know players hated it, but man when that woman gets murdered by a guard right in front of you at the winery, I was invested. I felt needed in the resistance, and I knew that if I didn't restore the tree in my base, people would die of mana hunger or be beaten and killed by the guards. It was very jarring to see such high quality storytelling and zone exploration in WoW. I should have known I'd never see it again.

[@scroom1202]

Differences are usually between 0.1 and 3% when gear is equal and play is optimal. Most drastic differences are due to core differences in playstyle. I play a Warrior and my friend is a Scholar main... Very different experiences.

[@KillerSpreeQQ]

I cannot wait until Preach reaches Shiva and we can all embrace him into the "Please step on me...." club

[@coda_o7]

You can estimate your relative contribution to party damage by checking who's higher in aggro on the party list. It's a rough measure, but it's something.

[@dannyboi7877]

Man, I have over 8000 hours in this game and have every class at 80 and levelling black mage was straight up the most boring experience I had in this entire game. It was literally the only time I didn’t even want to log in.

[@TheZazzMatazz]

I totally agree! While BLM is a blast at cap, leveling it so soooo painful 😖

[@minuette1752]

Some people love it others do not like its style.

[@RCmetal11]

I leveled BLM first, got to 50 and went right to RDM lol. But, i think DRG is the most painful leveling. Dont even get a single AoE until 42 lmao. Dragoon at 70vs60 alone is a huge difference.

[@MisterRadstone]

I agree, I think it was the worst job to go with. I don't get the take that it helps with the long gcd. Black mage presses the same amount of buttons early on as other jobs except they can't move around as much and won't get as many off gcd buttons to press along the way. I like all the jobs in their own way but black mage certainly felt the slowest to me.

[@dannyboi7877]

@@minuette1752 endgame it’s fine but the leveling experience is trash. I can’t imagine anyone enjoying it. It constantly feels clunky and like you aren’t doing anything

[@TobiasKremer]

@Preach Gaming Well there is kind of a damage meter: It is build into the aggro meter build into the party frame... A -> Has current Aggro (so should be the tank) Numbers -> show the order of player. So as a DD I want to see a two there. This indicates I am drawing top aggro after the tank buy doing big buys damage.

[@aanesijr]

The enemy meter will also have red (aggro), yellow (close to pulling aggro), and green (good) lights on it. Although you should only really get into yellow if you’re off tank and doing too much. I believe 2 is reserved for the floor tank. 😉

[@MrTalithan]

wait, that's what those letters and numbers represent?!

[@benoitrousseau4137]

@@MrTalithan It's the threat rankings, and A means AGGRO so that should be the tank. You can guesstimate how good your DPS is from that, albeit with the caveat that healers and tanks are going to be inflated on the ranking due to tank stance and healing aggro. (Although healers usually end up 7th and 8th even with heal aggro so that doesn't matter.) If I play black mage and I get out-aggroed by a dancer or a red mage (and they're not an asshole) I'll probably give them commends because they obviously out-played me.

[@Siluriiformes]

@@benoitrousseau4137 Healers can easily get 2 if they are newbie healers and constantly overheal since overheal aggro = 2x dmg aggro. That said, a healer at 2 is a healer not doing very well. Sometimes this happens by accident too (for example AST earthly star explodes too late and everybody is full hp)

[@funghazi]

I love that there's no skill trees, you've always got the best skills for each job and, if you don't like it, you can switch to another and see if you like it better after the next patch.

[@Graeldon]

Great to see you having a good time with it! On the level 50 raiding front you have the 24-man Crystal Tower series and the 8-man Coils of Bahamut. If you're after a challenge, the 8-man is tougher and more mechanically difficult. Plus it has a great story to go with it.

[@christopherthomas9218]

I think the one thing i like the most about Preach's content is that he comes off as just a gamer. I know a lot of creators/streamers have been jumping on the FFXIV 'bandwagon' because its easy money atm, but Mike has always been consistent about his passion for gaming and growing as a gamer (to me at least) and i can respect that.

[@WarchiefPeebs]

I'm halfway through stormblood after playing wow for 12 years, and.. 1) You are NOT prepared 2) YES in every sense of the word it gets better from here Welcome.

[@michaelkpate]

I rewatched Preach's interview from May 2020 with Ion recently. The one where Ion was assuring everyone that Covenant Abilities would be so perfectly balanced that everyone would be free to make their choice for RP reasons. Ion spoke extensively about how everyone customized their character. Except they don't - people go to Icy Veins and implement the suggestions. FFXIV doesn't have Covenant Abilities. Or Trinkets. Or Talent Trees. Gear changes stats but not abilities. The best players are the best players because they play the best not because they got lucky with a Legendary drop or did enough Islands to get their necklace leveled or got blessed by RNG when they opened this week's vault. The entire underlying philosophy is completely different.

[@egirlSkeletor]

black mage is honestly the most inconsistent class while leveling for any job of any category, at least in my experience. every other class has a relatively clear progression but for some reason its just all over. theres a brief period where being a pure ice mage is actually optimal iirc. also pro tip, scathe is bad and not worth being on your hotbar.

[@frostmourne1986]

Leveling black mage is basically getting a new class at 50, and every 10 levels after.

[@ivybennett2274]

Summoner is the same way

[@DarkRav3n]

Yeah, their AoE rotation changes like every 10-15 levels from 18 to 70. You go from spamming Fire II and Blizzard II, to just spamming Freeze, to start mixing in various single target abilities to use some mana before using Flare, all the while having to use Transpose to transition to umbral ice from astral fire. I hated BLM in any sort of AoE situation until I was 70+, lol.

[@Zakon673]

Scathe is still worth being there until you get to very high levels and you can do things like cast banked Xenoglossy charges while moving a lot. But yeah eventually it becomes worthless. In my opinion, with the expansion launching soon and removing Enochian as a mechanic, they should redesign scathe to be an early level version of Xenoglossy. It just gets a potency upgrade when it finally turns into Xenoglossy.

[@connormcguire484]

The idea for that slime boss was to, early on, teach players - who’d otherwise be strangers - that communication is a necessity. It feels unnecessarily drawn out because there’s enough time for even console players (without keyboards) to type input it one letter at a time.

[@Ninetailsmaster16]

It’s so cool to see you genuinely enjoying the game! As soon as I learned from the friend that referred me to FF14 that there was black mage class I immediately hard switched to thaumaturge and haven’t looked back. I recently finished ARR and have just dumb stupid feel-good fun blowin stuff up.