After a thousand years of suffering I have finally completed Final Fantasy 14's A Realm Reborn

[AwShucks]

Never understood the ARR dislike or complaints personally. Well, a lot of the missions are entirely throw away but I think I just really liked the main story and gameplay so it kept me going easy enough. I don't think getting to Heavensward should take more than 80 hours if you're focusing on that. At least that's about what it took me.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

Never understood the ARR dislike or complaints personally. Well, a lot of the missions are entirely throw away but I think I just really liked the main story and gameplay so it kept me going easy enough. I don't think getting to Heavensward should take more than 80 hours if you're focusing on that. At least that's about what it took me.

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When 2.0 launched a lot of people enjoyed ARR, because not only was such an upgrade from 1.0 that it eclipsed its shortcomings, but also the world was filled with people and a whole new community growing out of it. It helped make the game and it's pacing way better. Also due to the nature of the patches release going through 2.1 to 2.5 wasn't as exhausting as a new player today.

Honestly, I enjoyed ARR back in the day, but it would be a pain in the ass if I had to go through it a second time.

PLD so good at higher levels most of the time you don't even need a healer.

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This remind me why I hate doing dungeons with PLD or with a PLD:

- As a PLD: Healers often think I just don't need cures, which is not true at all if you are doing long pulls. And also kills my DPS which inherently is superior to theirs...
- As a healer: PLD often thinks that they shouldn't use self heals because it hurt their DPS which is true, but who cares! The self-heal is part of your damage mitigation skillset, use it, the others are not enough on leveling dungeons.

Not a dish on you, just reopened old wounds lol.

 

[komaruR]

 

[Bunga]

except it doesn't. I've played all of MSQ through Shadowbringers and I don't think I've even put in 500 hours...

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I really hope this was sarcastic. Only 500 hours to make a game good? Lol.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

I really hope this was sarcastic. Only 500 hours to make a game good? Lol.

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500 hours to finish all the main story content released until now.

The game 'gets good' way before that.

 

[Poltergust]

I kinda just want to report how I'm doing, being in a similar spot to the OP in terms of story progress.

I finally got around to handling all the extra quests given to me once I beat ARR a few weeks ago. I now have a level 50+ Summoner, Scholar, Botanist, and Carpenter. Alchemist is not far behind and I'm getting into being a Blue Mage on the side.

I'm also doing the relic weapon series of quests for both Summoner and Scholar (currently doing the books, only halfway done...) along with daily Beast Tribe quests, which is taking up a lot of my playtime. The latter I've managed to progress to the final series of quests for all Beast Tribes (except Ixali, but they're close), and now I'm getting a lot of good stuff from them.

I'm currently in the middle of the 2.4 series of MSQs and I'm like "uh, none of this is nearly as bad as the banquet quests leading up to Titan. What were people complaining about?"

EDIT: I just want to say that I've never been gated from MSQs by being underleveled. I finished ARR at 52 and am now almost 59. I still haven't reached Heavensward. I'm so ridiculously overleveled it's not funny lol.

By the time I finally get my relic weapons done I'll be like mid-60s or something I swear.

 

[Izanagi89]

I finished it last last year some time, after about 3 months of very slow play. I wanted to get it into the badly but I knew my time was limited so I just played it casually and it was the best I could've done. The last stretch of of post-ARR quest really burned me out but halfway through it got really good and it's been upwards ever since (HOW IS HEAVENSWARD SO GOOD???).

I will say, the reason my playthrough wasn't too bad was because I joined when they released Twintania so that 100% exp boost helped a ton as I only needed to focus on MSQ and job quests.

 

[Ashodin]

Shadowbringers >> Heavensward >> Stormblood >>>>>>>> ARR.

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Ehhhhh I'd argue Heavensward > Stormblood or Heavensward = Stormblood. There was a lot to like about the third expac.

 

[Tidalwaves]

Man, at this point I would have just waited. A realm reborn literally got nerfed in length last patch

 

[Mimosa]

my friends keep trying to convince me to play this but i'm honestly intimidated - I play "hardcore" games but very casually, and if the game doesn't suck me in the 1st 45 mins to an hour i have a hard time keeping with it.

I wish they could stream line the "boring" parts so i could easily get to the parts everyone praises.

 

[CaviarMeths]

- As a PLD: Healers often think I just don't need cures, which is not true at all if you are doing long pulls. And also kills my DPS which inherently is superior to theirs...
- As a healer: PLD often thinks that they shouldn't use self heals because it hurt their DPS which is true, but who cares! The self-heal is part of your damage mitigation skillset, use it, the others are not enough on leveling dungeons.

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Ehhhh

I main WHM and I'm a Holy-bot. Cure 2 rarely gets used. Cure 1 definitely never gets used. Lilies and OGCDs are more than enough for the tank. And if the DPS gets hit by something, that's what Assize and their own self-healing skills are for. Melee DPS especially, Bloodbath is an amazing healing skill.

And as a PLD I almost never use Clemency either. Only time I really use it is when I wanna pop Divine Veil on the party before a raid-wide. Or in a situation that's gone really sideways. Clemency is a last resort for emergencies only. Hallowed Ground is the "this is a big spicy pull and I should give the healer some breathing room" skill. Clemency is the "oh shit literally everything else failed, the healer is dead, and there's no SMN/RDM in the party" skill.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

my friends keep trying to convince me to play this but i'm honestly intimidated - I play "hardcore" games but very casually, and if the game doesn't suck me in the 1st 45 mins to an hour i have a hard time keeping with it.

I wish they could stream line the "boring" parts so i could easily get to the parts everyone praises.

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There is no way to do this. Story wise, everything is built up on what came before in terms of conflict and characters. Shadowbringers is exceptional storytelling, but what helps carry it to those highs is that it's basically season 5 of a great TV show, paying off things set up years before. They are redesigning the base game and cutting out alot of fluff, but at the end of the day it's an mmo with a rigid structure. There is nothing hardcore about walking from npc to npc for the next dialog. There is nothing mechanically stopping anyone from being able to tackle the game except for them to accept that it can ve a long journey and to get comfortable for the ride. Whether it be a few quests a day or devouring it over a few weeks like many already do with RPGs and the like. Slow release month? Sub for a month and tackle an expansion and unsub until it strikes you to jump back in. Their are end points to the story. Playing an mmo, especially one as single player as this, doesn't mean having to commit to endgame raids and grind.

 

[Zeal543]

ARR was complete ass, I would have dropped it had it not been for the fact that I played with IRL friends. Now I just sub when an expansion comes out until about the X.2 patch then wait for the new expansion..

 

[Deleted member 5596]

Ehhhh

I main WHM and I'm a Holy-bot. Cure 2 rarely gets used. Cure 1 definitely never gets used. Lilies and OGCDs are more than enough for the tank. And if the DPS gets hit by something, that's what Assize and their own self-healing skills are for. Melee DPS especially, Bloodbath is an amazing healing skill.

And as a PLD I almost never use Clemency either. Only time I really use it is when I wanna pop Divine Veil on the party before a raid-wide. Or in a situation that's gone really sideways. Clemency is a last resort for emergencies only. Hallowed Ground is the "this is a big spicy pull and I should give the healer some breathing room" skill. Clemency is the "oh shit literally everything else failed, the healer is dead, and there's no SMN/RDM in the party" skill.

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I'm mainly talking about leveling dungeons. If you are doing long pulls, the healer shouldn't just spam DPS skills.

WHM can be the exception because holy stuns and prevents lots of damage,but you can't do that with SCH or AST.

For those jobs it requires a more throughout rotation of your healing skills and requieres their tanks to properly use their damage mitigation skills, clemency included.

Again, for leveling dungeons and long pulls. Is probably one of the few instances people have to play their role so I guess that why they usually fail that hard.

 

[StreamedHams]

People flipping out about 700 hours, but when I last looked at my /played in Wow was astronomically high...

 

[KOT]

I'm not even saying about ShB or any other expansions, but the end of 2.x questline was so much worth it.

It was a tough road but I'm so happy I saw it to the end.

 

[Feep]

Ehhhhh I'd argue Heavensward > Stormblood or Heavensward = Stormblood. There was a lot to like about the third expac.

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There were definitely some very good parts, but overall it very much dragged to me. Very similar story beats repeated three or four times over and over again, lackluster art design on a good number of the new zones, and overall a lack of "grandeur", for lack of a better word.

 

[DarkShinobi]

I had a very slow start as well but near the end of ARR MSQ I got so hooked into the game that was playing it almost non stop. Heavensward was more than 100% rewarding in a way I cant describe.

 

[Deleted member 2328]

I'm going through the post-game right now. I never had the feeling I had to grind, but then again I do a lot of side-quests.
I can't wait to finally go to Ishgard.
The thing I love about FFXIV is that the social aspect of it is mostly optional. The matchmaking for the actual raids/dungeons is so good that there is no pressure to get into a clan or whatever. You can do things at your own pace.

 

[Ruruja]

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Hahaha, I feel attacked.

 

[Kadath]

The postgame was even longer than the game before it, but at least it wasn't gated as harshly concerning level requirements. The amount of times I had to grind three to four levels just to accept the next quest in ARR was mindbogglingly frustrating

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Huh, I've done the same thing just these past days and it's really not as you are saying.

I've had to juggle things carefully because I'm leveling both Bard and White Mage, but it was all smooth sailing with the only exclusion of the jump from 46 to 49.

The Daily Roulette basically hands a free level or more every day, with that plus the quests I was always matching the main story. The last 10 levels or so required me to pay attention to the Challenge log as well, but that's about it. (actually for the first 20 levels or so I was also logging out of the cities to not get the rest bonus, since I didn't want to outlevel the content, and playing 2 classes let me balance things. Otherwise I'd end up at least 3-4 levels ahead of the story and I wouldn't have been able to do the side quests as well...)

Btw, I'm at around 85 hours played, with 20 or so idling, reading all text carefully, doing 95% of all side quests, leveling (but falling a bit behind) ALL tradeskills and enabling all jobs. All done at a very relaxed pace.

So it's really 60 hours or so for a single class doing the main quest, up to level 50.

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

There were definitely some very good parts, but overall it very much dragged to me. Very similar story beats repeated three or four times over and over again, lackluster art design on a good number of the new zones, and overall a lack of "grandeur", for lack of a better word.

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I agree. SBs split narrative focus definitely hurt it. It felt less like one cohesive journey like the other 2 expansions. If only it could have achieved the highs of the steppes and beyond earlier, it wouldnt be instantly ranked 3rd by most people imo

 

[Pookmunki]

One thing to bear in mind is whether op was switching jobs or not.

I know on my first character it took forever to beat ARR due to main quest XP being split across whatever job i was playing at the time. Playing ARR with one job only is the way to get through it efficiently.

 

[Ozzie666]

ARR dragged on a bit. Thankfully its being cleaned up. Heavensward was a fantastic expansion. I felt Stormblood was a bit of a step backwards. Then Shadowbringers came along and either surpassed heavensward or matched it. I returned to the game at the start of lockdown here, me and my wife powered through the game. I think it took about 2 months to finish all the expansions. Worth it.

For anyone who played FFXIV 1.0, it's amazing to see how far this game came.

 

[THANKS]

Whilst the pacing is awful, all of the groundwork that ARR lays really pays off as you go through more expansions. And I still think 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5/55 are really good. The cutscenes in Ul Dah are amazing.

Enjoy Heavensward and beyond. Everything is awesome from here!

 

[Feep]

I agree. SBs split narrative focus definitely hurt it. It felt less like one cohesive journey like the other 2 expansions. If only it could have achieved the highs of the steppes and beyond earlier, it wouldnt be instantly ranked 3rd by most people imo

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Steppes rule

Apparently because it was done by main scenario writer for Shadowbringers? She started flexin'.

 

[Kromeo]

It wasn't honestly that bad at the time when everyone was the same level and you actually had to follow mechanics in the dungeons

 

[Xiaomi]

Honestly? Game feels like the story actually starts around the Dreams of Ice quests. Everything before that, everything, could be summed up with a line of text that said "This is Eorzea. Scions/Crystals = good, Garleans/Ascians = bad." Like, start the game at the praetorium as a tutorial for that time you kicked the Garleans' asses and then transition into Heavenward which actually is a story.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Steppes rule

Apparently because it was done by main scenario writer for Shadowbringers? She started flexin'.

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She's been out there doing her thing since 2.0. Early flex was the Coerthas quests in ARR, Crystal Tower, and Dark Knight job quests.

 

[Jane]

OP if you wanted to exaggerate, 700 is way, way too low. There are plenty of people who have spent thousands of hours on MMOs. 700 is actually pretty believable.

 

[Mifec]

Ehhhhh I'd argue Heavensward > Stormblood or Heavensward = Stormblood. There was a lot to like about the third expac.

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SB has some nice themes but is incredibly boring otherwise, it's nowhere close to HW.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

I got the end of ARR a year ago, I'm waiting for the next patch to finally play the pre-HW quests and finally get to HW which is supposed to be amazing.

 

[Keym]

To be fair, 700 hours is nothing when you're over a thousand years old.

Good job OP, now you can experience the marginally better HW. Flying mounts will be a game changer.

 

[Rckstar]

700 hours are just 29 ingame days... thats aint a lot for an mmo. 2.x was a real grind but not that bad cause i just skipped all the cutscenes :D

 

[kurahador]

Does not compute. I've been playing FFXIV for years and has only accumulated 2111 hours and I max out all the crafting classes and half the combat job, did all the sidequests, never skip cutscenes, did tons of raid and has at least a week worth of afk.

 

[Deleted member 1102]

I'm about halfway through Stormblood now after finishing ARR earlier this year (quarantine has helped a lot with that). I didn't hate ARR but it's indeed a complete slog and makes it really hard for me to recommend to friends who I know won't have the patience for the trivial shit it makes you do. It's a real shame though seeing as everything after ARR has been amazing and well worth the two years I spent starting and stopping the base game.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

I fucking loved ARR and I can't wait to do new game plus for it. I'm definitely in the minority

 

[BhetjaXIV]

Game can be super pretty in later expensions, while ARR areas can look pretty "bland"

Spoiler: Screenshots

 

[Marie]

I'm mainly talking about leveling dungeons. If you are doing long pulls, the healer shouldn't just spam DPS skills.

WHM can be the exception because holy stuns and prevents lots of damage,but you can't do that with SCH or AST.

For those jobs it requires a more throughout rotation of your healing skills and requieres their tanks to properly use their damage mitigation skills, clemency included.

Again, for leveling dungeons and long pulls. Is probably one of the few instances people have to play their role so I guess that why they usually fail that hard.

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This is completely wrong lol.

The whole HW/SB/SHB leveling dungeons you have more than enough tools to dps and heal. PLD are not expected to clemency either. I don't know where you got this information but I can tell you certainly that this is not the case in leveling dungeons.

Imagine thinking AST of all jobs not being able to do big pulls in dungeons when they have the most free healing OGCD in the game.

 

[Kunka Kid]

Yeah it was pretty brutal. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of cool story moments, but the gameplay/quest design is horrendous. And it goes. on. forever...

 

[Deleted member 5596]

This is completely wrong lol.

The whole HW/SB/SHB leveling dungeons you have more than enough tools to dps and heal. PLD are not expected to clemency either. I don't know where you got this information but I can tell you certainly that this is not the case in leveling dungeons.

Imagine thinking AST of all jobs not being able to do big pulls in dungeons when they have the most free healing OGCD in the game.

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I got this information by leveling all tanks and healers to 80.

(And how pre-80 AST, has more OGCD than WHM combination of Afflatus, tetra, Bene and Assize?)

 

[Marie]

I got this information by leveling all tanks and healers to 80.

(And how pre-80 AST, has more OGCD than WHM combination of Afflatus, tetra, Bene and Assize?)

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essential dignity x 2, earthly star, celestial opposition, celestial intersection, horoscope, collective unconscious

Also Afflatus isn't a OGCD and you're missing assylum

If you played all tanks and healers at 80 then you should know that all tanks and healers combo have more than enough tools to heal and still do damage.

Even sch has enough tools to dps and heal at the same while leveling.

FFXIV Shadowbringers: How to Scholar in Dungeons

Youtube removed my description will readd soon don't worry.2:15 - #1: ALWAYS "Adlo" the tank before every pull ("deployment tactics" usage included).2:55 - #...

www.youtube.com

 

[Deleted member 5596]

essential dignity x 2, earthly star, celestial opposition, celestial intersection, horoscope, collective unconscious

Also Afflatus isn't a OGCD and you're missing assylum

If you played all tanks and healers at 80 then you should know that all tanks and healers combo have more than enough tools to heal and still do damage.

Even sch has enough tools to dps and heal at the same while leveling.

FFXIV Shadowbringers: How to Scholar in Dungeons

Youtube removed my description will readd soon don't worry.2:15 - #1: ALWAYS "Adlo" the tank before every pull ("deployment tactics" usage included).2:55 - #...

www.youtube.com

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You don't get the second charge of essential dignity until lvl 78, how nice being able to use it at the last leveling dungeon.... An Affatus is OGCD, it just requires a lily. Assylum and Regen are regen skills, I was thinking about pure 'healing' skills, but yeah, yu can add those 2 too. (Divine Benison too)

I didn't mean you can't DPS on leveling dungeons, just that at the contrary on most other content, the focus is on healing and keeping the tank alive using all the necessary healing tools, rather than the notion that you can simply spam DPS skills and throwing some OGCD that a lot of healers expect their job to be.

And if you are leveling PLD and not using Clemency sporadically when needed, cuz "oh my DPS!!" you are a bad tank. Period. You are gimping yourself compared to other tanks and making healing harder than necessary.

 

[Kouriozan]

I didn't mind ARR but I started playing 6 months before Heavensward's release, a bit long but it was fine, I agree the story only gets good near the end of it and Heavensward is an amazing expansion.

 

[Marie]

You don't get the second charge of essential dignity until lvl 78, how nice being able to use it at the last leveling dungeon.... An Affatus is OGCD, it just requires a lily. Assylum and Regen are regen skills, I was thinking about pure 'healing' skills, but yeah, yu can add those 2 too. (Divine Benison too)

I didn't mean you can't DPS on leveling dungeons, just that at the contrary on most other content, the focus is on healing and keeping the tank alive using all the necessary healing tools, rather than the notion that you can simply spam DPS skills and throwing some OGCD that a lot of healers expect their job to be.

And if you are leveling PLD and not using Clemency sporadically when needed, cuz "oh my DPS!!" you are a bad tank. Period. You are gimping yourself compared to other tanks and making healing harder than necessary.

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Yikes...

And Afflatus is a GCD lol. You use it and you see your GCD roll. https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Afflatus_Solace

I'm not sure how you got the impression WHM afflatius skills are OGCD when pressing them puts all your other GCD skills on a global cooldown. LOL

and did you even watch that scholar video? lol

edit
Wait, so you're saying PLD should just resquiescat and just spam clemency instead of using any of their new abilities like holy circle and confiteor? should they just hold down passage of arms as well for the full duration because of the 100% block?

 

[Deleted member 5596]

Yikes...

And Afflatus is a GCD lol. You use it and you see your GCD roll. https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Afflatus_Solace

I'm not sure how you got the impression WHM afflatius skills are OGCD when pressing them puts all your other GCD skills on a global cooldown. LOL

and did you even watch that scholar video? lol

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I watched it. Momo is a hardcore player that doesn't represents the majority of the players skillset.

I can post you a vid of a DS lvl1 run, that doesn't mean is the normal experience of the players.

Edit: ' sporadically using Clemency' dosn't mean 'spam clemency'.

 

[Kupo Kupopo]

Note to self: do not exaggerate even when it is glaringly obvious on Era

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you're learning...

& congrats! onward!...

 

[Marie]

I watched it. Momo is a hardcore player that doesn't represents the majority of the players skillset.

I can post you a vid of a DS lvl1 run, that doesn't mean is the normal experience of the players.

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So you didn't watch it. Because if you did you would know its guide to teach people that are leveling their scholar. Its for beginners, its not some pro/hardcore thing. Imagine thinking healing and dpsing in a dungeon is hardcore.

You also ignored everything else in the post.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

So you didn't watch it. Because if you did you would know its guide to teach people that are leveling their scholar. Its for beginners, its not some pro/hardcore thing. Imagine thinking healing and dpsing in a dungeon is hardcore.

You also ignored everything else in the post.

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There's guides to help people do lvl1 runs in DS, that dosn't mean all people can do lvl 1 runs. I hope you understand that the vast majority of players are very far from that level of skill and job dominance, even as a guide most people can't replicate it as well.

 

[Marie]

You're equating a level 1 dark soul run to dps and healing in a dungeon in FFXIV.

Are you serious?

And most players that I have ran into through leveling roulette can and do dps and heal in a dungeon.

and once again you're ignoring parts of the post where you're clearly wrong.

I'm over this. You can be stuck with your mindset. Its clear that you aren't being honest with what you're saying and dodging everything that goes against your views. GLHF.