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Sapozhnik
Jan 2, 2005

Nap Ghost
Play times like those are the reason I stay the gently caress away from MMOs, god drat. That's some serious skinner box poo poo.

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Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

I wish I could keep up my interest in FFXIV but every time I hit the early 30s I find the story drags and I haven't gotten the cool stuff from my advanced class so it feels like such a slog.

Tae
Oct 24, 2010

Hello? Can you hear me? ...Perhaps if I shout? AAAAAAAAAH!
Ninja is still the most fun I had in a final fantasy game

OneDeadman
Oct 16, 2010

[SUPERBIA]

Sapozhnik posted:

Play times like those are the reason I stay the gently caress away from MMOs, god drat. That's some serious skinner box poo poo.

I mean it's also playing and poo poo posting with people in guild probably.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

Considering that I've spent well over 10 years of my entire life completely unconscious, a few hundred days having fun with something I enjoy seems trivial.

YoshiOfYellow
Aug 21, 2015

Voted #1 Babysitter in Mushroom Kingdom

Also these playtimes are likely over several years and a raw number doesn't account for time spent afk or doing other non-game things.

kirbysuperstar
Nov 11, 2012

Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess.
Pretty much. I mean, that's the crux of it, yeah? As long as you're having fun (and not ruining your life or trying to raid while your wife is giving birth) who gives a poo poo.

ZenMasterBullshit
Nov 2, 2011

Restaurant de Nouvelles "À Table" Proudly Presents:
A Climactic Encounter Ending on 1 Negate and a Dream

Himuro posted:

I mean, I know why. Nostalgia sells. But it feels like anytime I see anything from that game it’s,”hey, remember when FF did this?!” Saw some Golden Saucer thing, some Cyan castle with Cyan’s theme, a boss fight with Kefka and the Statue of Gods while Dancing Mad plays, its got Magitek armor, and now this. Just feels like nostalgia is all it has to offer speaking as an outsider who hasn’t put much time into the game yet and I’m just curious if it has anything to offer on its own merits, which isn’t a dumb thing to ask at all.

FFXIV original setting and plot stuff is unironically one of, if not the best in the franchise and even though it is an MMO it manages to have actually interesting character writing and arcs for it's main cast (and a lot of good side story writing for everything else) which puts it heads and shoulders about most FF games.

Jupiter Jazz
Jan 13, 2007

by sebmojo

Cleretic posted:

It's a very referential game, but for the most part it's not ONLY being referential, it's using these known elements to thread new concepts and stories. Like, it's got Ultima Weapon in the storyline for A Realm Reborn, but despite looking like the one from FFVII he's an entirely different figure, filling a different role.

If you want XIV to have its own voice, it absolutely does, but Stormblood is actually a really bad point to be saying that in, because for some reason Stormblood is just SUPER referential. The two endgame raid chains are explicitly so (there's the Omega chain that's the bosses from V and VI you've already heard about, but there's also a more story-focused one that's directly got characters from FFXII and is about you digging up the truth behind the War of the Lions), but you've got Doma, you've got Shinryu and Omega, you've got an area that seems to be a combination of FFX's Calm Lands and XIII's Archylte Steppe, there is a dungeon that's basically just the Magitek Research Facility from VI, the Atma Weapon from VI makes an appearance at some point.

Stormblood still has its own voice, but for whatever reason it's also when they started getting way more flagrant about their references.

Wow that sounds kind of lame in a way. Have fans complained about this? Sounds obnoxious.

BrightWing
Apr 27, 2012

Yes, he is quite mad.

Himuro posted:

That’s cool. I like what I’ve played but haven’t been able to invest much into it.

It worked for me early because it really is my first mmo, so all the easy early stuff was appreciated.

Now it's a pain in my rear end.

Jupiter Jazz
Jan 13, 2007

by sebmojo

BrightWing posted:

It worked for me early because it really is my first mmo, so all the easy early stuff was appreciated.

Now it's a pain in my rear end.

How so? Doesn’t bode well for me because one of the reasons I want to play it is because people say you can play it casually or whatever and not make it your life like other mmo’s and I’m going to be applying to grad school this year and was thinking of playing a casual long term game that doesn’t require commitment like a fighting game would and now you’re telling me this!

Fantastic Foreskin
Jan 6, 2013

A golden helix streaked skyward from the Helvault. A thunderous explosion shattered the silver monolith and Avacyn emerged, free from her prison at last.

Himuro posted:

...casual long term game that doesn’t require commitment...

Have you considered... not an MMO?

Allarion
May 16, 2009

がんばルビ!
No you can still play it pretty casually. Early stuff only becomes painful when you’re rolling an alt and are grinding for levels, so now the old content is less fresh, and they’re less impressive compared to stuff later on. The game also never puts you in a position where you have to schedule your life around it since the story stuff will always be open to casually rolling with randoms. It’s only if you really must have the top end gear where you start to have to schedule, but top end game gear is only ever useful for content that’s basically challenge versions of the game’s regular content

WaltherFeng
May 15, 2013

50 thousand people used to live here. Now, it's the Mushroom Kingdom.
Beating Titan Extreme with randoms was one of the best MMO experiences Ive had.

Then got utterly stuck on Ramuh and gave up because I dont have time to socialize.

Renoistic
Jul 27, 2007

Everyone has a
guardian angel.
I played FFXIV until I reached the Gold Saucer and haven't touched it since. It's just yet another MMO in every way that counts.

Jupiter Jazz
Jan 13, 2007

by sebmojo

ItBreathes posted:

Have you considered... not an MMO?

FFXIV is stated as a causal game. I think I leveled up to level 10 or whatever in a few hours when I first got it. It’s not much of a grind and can be taken in gulps. At least in the early game.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

FFXIV is super open to playing it casually. The super heavy hardcore grinding is just people who have already finished the basic stuff and are filling out their logs. If you just want to see the story and keep up with basic content you can do that trivially.

Tae
Oct 24, 2010

Hello? Can you hear me? ...Perhaps if I shout? AAAAAAAAAH!
The director literally says " play something else" when there's s lull in content

Terper
Jun 26, 2012


Himuro posted:

I mean, I know why. Nostalgia sells. But it feels like anytime I see anything from that game it’s,”hey, remember when FF did this?!”

Well yeah, this is the Final Fantasy thread, not the Final Fantasy 14 thread. There's little point in talking about things that are purely FF14 here.

Dragonturtle
Feb 23, 2017

The FF11 expansions and Chains of Promathia in particular have what are probably the best stories that you can find in an FF game but they are locked behind so much archaic hellgrind bullshit that it is hard to recommend anyone actually play the game.

All the expansions and side-content weave and mesh together really well and it is well told for a game that is 14 years old but the content is pretty much nigh-impenetrable at this point without gluing yourself to the wikipedias and the game itself is incredibly unfun and boring to play.

Listen to the soundtrack and try to find someone with videos of the story but don't actually play it yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKzz2kOnceA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPxF_x7utm4 along with the rest of the Treasures of Aht Urghan soundtrack is pretty great.

Dragonturtle fucked around with this message at 12:14 on May 21, 2018

corn in the bible
Jun 5, 2004

Oh no oh god it's all true!

ZenMasterBullshit posted:

What imp atom said and this can be turned against literally any other plot point in both the main story and side content. "Oh wow how come I'm just hearing about these betrayals during the Autumn war now?" "Oh if this magical spindal that lets the goblins summon alexander was so important how come they didn't bring it up until it was actually relevant to the narrative they wanted to tell?" Don't even get me started on sometime between 1.0 and 2.1 how Nael wasn't actually ever Nael but Nael's sister dressed like Nael to carry on Nael's memory

Yes, it turns out a narrative episdoe that generally self contained and written well after the world is established is probably going to contain plot points and whole concepts and locations that weren't talked about previously because They Didn't Write Them Yet.


This is also dumb cause the extent of references and how important they are is basically completely loving random in the franchise. Some games the classic summons are gods, sometimes they're boat names, some times they're magical parasites that are slowly killing the world as part of a sinister plot of Dark god worshippers and kind of the biggest threat in existence. Sometime chocobos are set dressing, sometimes they're a whole sidequest in themselves, sometimes they're literally the protagonist.

ALSO all the fairy tales about old FF's are already referenced in universe because that's where the triple triad cards and the description on the glamour items come from.

Make another chocobo dungeon you bastards

Bregor
May 31, 2013

People are idiots, Leslie.

The first three expansions were so good, as far as story content and music/environments. I still remember the first time I heard this tune after beating the Promys:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXuMUqj2Vjg

Bregor fucked around with this message at 03:07 on May 22, 2018

Dragonturtle
Feb 23, 2017

Bregor posted:

The first three expansions were so good, as far as story content and music/environments. I still remember the first time I heard this tune after beating the Promys:

http://www.youtube.com/VXuMUqj2Vjg

I remember the Promy climbs and stepping out into Lufaise for the first time too. The Promy climbs were such a good setpiece dungeon for the story and they really nailed that feeling of desperately sneaking through an incredibly dangerous dungeon full of encounters that could kill everyone in the blink of an eye.

It was really tense and satisfying to finally kill off all three of the Promy bosses and their ridiculous fights just to suddenly get teleported away and thrust into the peaceful meadows out of nowhere.

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Turns out FF13 runs just fine on a surface pro and also that i am completely broke brained because Im grinding out all the post game content.

Random thing that bugs me: Lightning has exactly one node on her crystarium for ravager thats 285 hp while every single other one is 275. It isnt even the last one, there are 275s after it. Why this specific node?

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
How is FFXI nowadays? I used to play it a shitload from NA launch up to shortly after Wings of the Goddess dropped, but haven't touched it since. I've heard it's changed into an entirely different game at this point, and most leveling is done by hiring a group of lvl 99 black mages to chain an entire zone of enemies to instantly get you 60 levels or some poo poo.

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Good news, some form of it is dropping onto mobile devices soon and since its parallel to the current version nothing will transfer over

Dragonturtle
Feb 23, 2017

CodfishCartographer posted:

How is FFXI nowadays? I used to play it a shitload from NA launch up to shortly after Wings of the Goddess dropped, but haven't touched it since. I've heard it's changed into an entirely different game at this point, and most leveling is done by hiring a group of lvl 99 black mages to chain an entire zone of enemies to instantly get you 60 levels or some poo poo.

FF11 is largely a solo game now due to the population largely quitting and the addition of Trusts to the game to replace them. Trusts are just NPCs that you can summon almost everywhere that have various jobs and unique abilities that act as actual party members. So you can summon someone like Prishe and Shantotto to join your party basically everywhere.

They've greatly softened the leveling curve and made it much easier to do the missions and quests that you need to do to progress but you'll end up doing most of the content solo because the population is a lot lower and everyone playing is already off doing end-game content or grinding away.

FF11 is on discount at the moment so it might be worth looking into if you want to play it again but if you do decide to play it hit up the thread goons in the MMO section and try to see if you can join their server/linkshell. You'll also want to look into Windower and all the various little 3rd-party add-ons that greatly enhance the quality of life for the game. The people in the thread could probably help you more than I could since I've not played it for years.

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

Now would be a great time to come and play because there are a lot of Special Events and goodies being given away for the 16th Anniversary of the game

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

If I play FF11 now solo, is it like normal JRPG length then?

mateo360
Mar 20, 2012

TOO MANY PEOPLE MERLOCK!
ONLY ONE DIJON!
I'll play FF11 when I can buy the game and NOT have to pay a monthly fee on top of that.

Dragonturtle
Feb 23, 2017

It'd probably end up being even longer than the normal JRPG since there is so much content in the game built up over more than a decade. There is a ton of waiting and looking things up on the wikis and other sites too since the game has absolutely zero hand-holding at all whatsoever.

FF11 is from that period of time where MMOs never told you anything about the underlying systems or where to get things so you'll bumble around completely lost if you don't get help or look things up. In addition to that the world itself is extremely dangerous and everything wants to kill you and can tend to do that very easily.

There are so many bizarre esoteric systems that FF11 hides from you and the game never really mentions that they exist. If you've played FF14 than treat FF11 as the hard antithesis of it.

Dragonturtle fucked around with this message at 05:13 on May 22, 2018

Dragonturtle
Feb 23, 2017

Basically, FF11 has a lot of strengths to it that it does extremely well and the game oozes atmosphere and danger and has an incredibly good story to it but at the same time the game itself is incomprehensible and very difficult to get into unless you have help from other players and glue yourself to the wikis for information on how to do quests.

The game never tells you anything and is content to just let you run amok the second you set foot in the game. They've added a few new systems like records of eminence which give you short-term goals to accomplish but the game itself tells you absolutely nothing about how to accomplish these goals, how to properly gear your and prepare your character, where to go for missions and the levels of the enemies or anything at all like that.

It can be a really fun experience if you like games where you can just explore the world and see lots of really weird things along with all the nebulous systems in place like how weather and the day effects certain things but the heyday of the game is long gone and it'll be a very lonely game for you if you don't immediately try to find other players.

If you really enjoy content like that I would absolutely recommend you play Blue Mage though. Blue Mage in FF11 is the best possible representation of the job that an FF can have and has an interesting story and an extremely unique set-up when it comes to classes/jobs in an MMO.

Kingtheninja
Jul 29, 2004

"You're the best looking guy here."
6 is amazing. It's been so long since I've played it, and I only ever got about as far as visiting the empire (where I just reached). I'm having a blast going through this one, and I think it's a great ending to the snes Era of final fantasy.

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Kingtheninja posted:

6 is amazing. It's been so long since I've played it, and I only ever got about as far as visiting the empire (where I just reached). I'm having a blast going through this one, and I think it's a great ending to the snes Era of final fantasy.

Make sure to play Awful Fantasy next

Kingtheninja
Jul 29, 2004

"You're the best looking guy here."
I remember playing some when it came out but that's about it. Mostly about how I had no idea what the commands did.

seiferguy
Jun 9, 2005

FLAWED
INTUITION



Toilet Rascal
I think almost all of the users referenced in Awful Fantasy are banned now.

Sapozhnik
Jan 2, 2005

Nap Ghost
well, you know what they say

you either eat a ban early or live long enough to see yourself become an unfunny shitposter

Kingtheninja
Jul 29, 2004

"You're the best looking guy here."
If Locke has Mug and genji glove, will he attempt a steal twice in one attack? Also, who best to give the genji glove to?

Mr. Locke
Jul 28, 2010

Kingtheninja posted:

If Locke has Mug and genji glove, will he attempt a steal twice in one attack? Also, who best to give the genji glove to?

Yes he will and Locke’s probably the best wielder of the Genji Glove for most of the game, being one of the few characters with great weapon selection AND nothing naturally better to do with most of his turns (besides Mug).

There are exceptions, most of which require specific equipment abuse, like Cyan somehow getting two Tempests.

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Last Celebration
Mar 30, 2010

Kingtheninja posted:

If Locke has Mug and genji glove, will he attempt a steal twice in one attack? Also, who best to give the genji glove to?

Nope, the game tells you he does but according to mechanics guides the game only makes one check for stealing and makes two messages show up.

As for Genji Glove, Locke is pretty good for it since everyone else is good at magic or has moves that ignore the back row and enemy defense like Raging Fist, thrown Shuriken, Drill and Fang.

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