To give people a bit of background who maybe haven't watched the stream before. During the subathon one of the stretch goals was to play FFXIV, and then one of the other ones was to name his character and choose his race by poll. Hence why he is femroe and his name is Floor Inspector (a running joke on the channel). He got to choose the job.
Literally everything in the game gets better with time. The combat, the story, the zones, the voice acting, the battle content. I can't wait to see Preach's reaction when he gets into Heavensward, when the game improves very considerably. Nice video. I enjoyed it :)
EXACTLY in wow i kinda feel everything after legion or mop was just a downgrade while in FF14 every expansion always feels like a upgrade which makes it so much better
I just finished the main Stormblood story, and it was better than really any WoW expansion - and it's not even as good as Heavensward (IMO). The difference between Stormblood and ARR is night and day - I'm loving it all... Even the normal dungeons are interesting with interesting mechanics, and the Royal Menagerie fight was downright amazing... Though, Pool of Tribute/Susano is my favorite boss fight so far. So damn fun.
Low levelling suffers from pruning the same way WoW does, they moved most of the skills to much higher levels. Means the early levels are braindead simple and frankly boring for experienced players. Just have to push through it.
That's just a polite way of saying the game is piss easy and boring at the beginning. Problem is, first impressions count for a lot. I quit after a week because every single thing I did was piss easy. The game's building up these quests and storylines about how evil and dangerous something is, everyone is terrified of it, then I get the quest to finally confront this terrifying and dangerous evil and my hit points never drop below 98%. That's dogshit. My first impression of WoW, when they talked about encroaching Murlocs, I found two dead guards by the river, their corpses ripped apart, then the murlocs ripped me apart. The world actually felt dangerous and challenging.
I picked dragoon early on and also got really worried about the 2.5 second gcd, however... Starting with heavensward it turned really quickly from "eurgh i'm falling asleep" to "i don't know how to weave off-gcds into my rotation while doing positionals and ever increasing boss mechanics, send help".
the distribution of mechanics and APM is very top heavy 1-50. I wish they gave 15-30 a bit more of the stuff you got around 30-50 so that the learning curve and difficulty is a bit smoother.
I know its unpopular but I cant stand barely any jobs below 70. Luckily they have a way to boost alt jobs for people like me who just want to jump into the jobs with their full kit. And its cheaper than wow's boosts which help.
I wish I could send help, but it will only get worse. You'll get even more off-gcd skills, even more positionals, skills that combo into skills that are part of a different combo and special buffs that allow you to use even more skills.
One of my favorite things about FF14 is how a quest to collect something only requires you to kill 3-4 of that mob. "Collect 3 stag tails" means you only need to kill 3 stags. Boom! easy. No 10% drop rate or some garbage like that.
iirc those world first class devs said those RNG give players more feeling of achievement if they got that rat tail after all the grinds. YEA SURE lmao
@@Snorlax9 lmfao they really said that? LITERALLY NO ONE feels a sense of achievement from a 5 percent item drop quest, all anyone feels is absolute fucking annoyance lol. It may be true for really rare like mounts... (to me it's just annoying, so i don't bother grinding for that shit, since mostly the mounts available to me through whatever other system are just as good... like iron-bound protodrake)
@@ExarchGaming not the rat tail but the gears and other drops, but thats what they reply when shit ton of RNG were added to the game back then in WoD iirc
@@timmytonberry3246 agreed. I don't like ul'dah very much. Most confusing of the cities. Worst look too. Gridania is super easy to move around in, but also really boring to me. I can see why so many more people are in limsa even without its racy reputation. It's gorgeous. Kind moderately difficult to get around, but for the aesthetic I'll deal. Plus once you get all crystals it isn't bad at all. .
I was born in the uldah, molded by it, while you navigated noscea with boyish eyes I was becoming a man, by the time I saw the easy navigation that was the teleport, it was BLINDING
@@hexi1722 those instant death abilities do be very satisfying in fates full of mobs. Rams voice -> ultravibration -> Fate cleared with a gold medal xD
The recommended gear button at the top of your character window, is your best friend. Specially while lvling to make sure you wearing the right things.
Except when you're a tank who has leveled something else before, in that case it may throw some horrible recommendations at you. The recommendation button only takes into account the main stat (which for tanks it considers to be VIT), so if there's something in your armory that has 1 point of VIT more than your current item, it'll recommend that, even if this replacing item has no STR and like a quarter of the defenses. Always best to sanity check it just in case!
Preach always does things his own way. I like how he, unlike any other content creator I can think of, just shut the door on Warcraft, and never looked back. That is incredibly brave, given his occupation and fanbase.
Cmon guys wait at least a year before saying NEVER looked back, its been like two months by now. Yeah blizzards been ablosute dump shit for years now, who knows what its gonna be in five years. Never and always are just bad ways to see most things
It took him 3 years to quit.... He only quit because of the bandwagon.. Stop riding these uploaders. Content creators my ass. They make vids from others work.
The "keeping you engaged with distractions" thing is really spot on - I ended up getting to Heavensward nearly a month after I would have if I"d just played through the story because I saw someone zoom past on a flying chair mount and I dropped everything to level alchemist for several weekends in a row.
I love his pacing actually. Going through ARR super chill is nice. I'm glad he's comfy reading stuff because a lot of WoW friends of mine skip through tips and text too quickly and can't figure out where anything is.
Dude same, a guy who just joined my FC also said he skipped almost everything because he wanted to catch up, even tho he loves the story. I really can't understand these people.
@@rRekko i can get them to an extend playing it myself atm and had only 1 time the feeling of "oh boi lets rush it" when the regalia was added and i never even once was in the gold saucer then (in the span of 2 days) i rushed the 200k mgp and was done able to just rollback to the story
That’s sad, imagine skipping all the beautiful moments of the game just to “catch” up, I wish people would look at the game as if each expansion is its own single player game with an mmo attached to it, skipping anything in this game imo is just not a good idea for ones own experience in game and and expectations one would have if just starting, and that’s coming from an ex wow player who beat the MSQ in 3 months, I’m at the end game and now I’m bored, farming bis gear and etc stuff is great fun and all but this game the real content is the story, and if people can’t enjoy that before even reaching the last MSQ, because they wanna just raid and that’s it? Then they will be highly dissatisfied by endgame, unless glam, the raids, and a few other small niche things at end are their cup of TEA heheh. I’m a 526 ilvl NIN btw on my way to being an Omnicrafter :)
In my friend group as punishment for people who clicked through ARR we make them watch the super long cinematic before they enter Heavensward. They literally had no idea what was coming because they clicked through all the foreshadowing it's actually pretty funny xD. For me I start to get annoyed when people skip even the short blurbs the explains skills and mechanics. For example during the regalia event someone kept ignoring the notes about Warp-Strike and therefore kept failing. JUST READ IT.
Solid and unbiased evaluation. It ramps up in Heavensward, slows a bit in Stormblood, picks up the pace again and then it never stops. I just hit 80 and I have 100+ hours of raid content to do even before the new expansion not to mention crafting and side content. Amazing game.
It's amazing for new guys! For some of us who have been for a while here, there has been a content draught since winter, point being when you catchup, there's plenty of free time where you can do other stuff like play other games. This can be good or bad depending on people I guess >
Im in Havensward and around lvl 56, I have a blast and will try to reach 80 before endwalker will release^^ will be a wild ride but I will enjoy it^^ my biggest success to this point are the 3 raid towers and that I got onion knight and cloud as pets from them ! Really lucky I rolled both of them !
No it doesn't slows in stormblood, all the expansions are amazing u guys just love flashy things and since stormblood is not flashy so u Don't like heck I kinda prefer in some parts stormblood over shadowbringers
Took me a few tries to get into the game, starting a couple years ago. Gotta say, finished Shadowbringers about a month ago and it is one of the best RPGs I've ever experienced. It's hard to disassociate from WoW but once I was able to, what a ride. What. a ride.
I'm on my second try, and once I started to not play it like WoW and just stuck to MSQ + Job Quests + Blue Unlock quests it got so much better. So many of the side quests are just a waste of time that really make it a worse experience.
I originally started FFXIV back in ARR so I was curious how bad the originally leveling was so I made an alt and I couldn't believe that Lahabrea actually told you the grand design of the Ascians when you first met him but we didn't understand. In my opinion the build up from ARR to Shadowbringers is honestly one of the most incredible feats of story telling in gaming it just blew my mind they plotted this 8 years ago and I can't wait for Endwalker!
19:00 There's a great story writer, she started with dungeon quests, then got rogue, ninja, Dark Knight, and after that main writer of shadowbringers, and co main writer of endwalker! highly recommend her classes/class stories, I absolutely fell in love with the DK.
Mike, just an fyi, when you are using a spell with a cast time, you can move in the last .2-.5 seconds of the cast (I don't remember the exact number) without interrupting your own cast if you need to get out of an enemy aoe.
@@tylerlnx138 it's different from WoW - what you're thinking of with WoW is ping during that last split second of cast, in FFXIV it is the last 0.5s of cast + ping
I actually like that the tutorials pop up after. They let you figure it out, but also eliminate that feeling you get in games of "Wait what did I just do? How did I do that? What is that?" by explaining it after so you know for next time.
If they added a snall notification that a tutorial text is available just before you need it. One thats not a giant window. You can click it or figure it out for yourself. Then the normal window pops up like normal.
It isn't by design. It's happening because there were originally side-quests that players would pick up in the starting cities that would trigger those tutorials earlier. Now that leveling is more streamlined, all side-quests are optional and usually skipped.
Some of these tutorials actually appear from some of the very first side quests in the city as you accept the the quest, teaching you some basic systems (using items at specific points, handing over items, using emotes, etc). While the tutorials will still trigger later on if you never did that side quest, it does, unfortunately, appear after you've already 'done the thing'.
Your complaint about your character being a bit expressionless will get a lot better later on, as the game has been adding more emotes with basically every patch to allow the character to be more expressive. It can also vary by race, as IIRC my Hyur Midlander Female was more expressive to start with as far as I remember. Edit: Also, the gameplay issue is mainly due to how the dev team pruned the ability bloat in Heavensward and especially Stormblood by removing some of the early additions. Starting in Shadowbringers they started using a different method of rebalancing the classes with the new expansions to avoid breaking the early gameplay, but it was a bit late by that point.
Yeah, I think most people agree that race choice can have a huge impact on your experience, just because of their character emotes and expression. I went with cat girl and it's possibly the most expressive of all races and never once did I think it was expressionless even at the beginning of the game. Female Hroethgar is one of the least used races and when I think about it I guess they are kind of expressionless. Maybe they get better later in the game.
@@ggg21201 This is subjective but I actually switched *from* Miqo because they were...too expressive, to the point it felt fake, and went with Viera, who many people think are boring and emotionless but I love their "cut to the point" bad bitch attitude.
It's always a great idea in FFXIV to avoid doing the side quests on your "main" job, if you can resist the urge. Because most quests are not repeatable, if you save the side quests for later, you can use them to help level up another job on the same character, and you can play ALL jobs on just one character. That said, always do the "blue" quests if you can (blue quest markers) as they unlock extra systems for you (such as the dye system, materia for crafting, the gold saucer, etc...)
I did like that. And when I start leveling my 2nd job - I was doing just FATE-content. But not all blue-quests open something noteworthy. Levequest openers for example.
@@doctorowl2004 Levequest completion actually gives up a stupid amount of EXP in a short span of time. It's actually a ridiculously fast way to level up gathering or crafting classes, and is useful for speed leveling DPS classes as you can hit fates, then Levequests, and turn in the Levequests and pick up more otw to the next fate (or while waiting for fates in your level area to pop up). Not to mention, completing a certain number of Levequests gives you a massive EXP bonus each week (up to half a level or more). .... This is coming from a person that leveled all classes to max like a nob.
@@Exile_Sky Ye, I know that it's a good source of EXP. And yes - 'tis the best way when you exp DPS class, an' use LFG in the same time) But I don't know why have they made feature-quests to each levequest-spot? =) It's all what I mean about it. Sorry from my language, it isn't my native))
Oh, I think I know why you got some of those Tutorials at a weird time. In the main Cities (for you Ul'dah) there are normal quests around Level 1-3 that are meant to be the Tutorials. So you pick up those quests and the Tutorial triggers and shows you what to do before you do it. Since yous skipped those they triggered after you have done what they're supposed to teach you.
@@TheSilverwing999 that's the problem of ffxiv not preach. they need to redo the tutorial system. im fed up of asking sprouts where are their shoes during titan normal.
@@mosh.4245 Lmao titan normal is so easy I highly doubt you need to go around asking sprouts about their shoes. Chill your OCD out and just press the buttons. Lmao some people are wild
@@Valvad0ss I don't think he's mad about sprouts not having shoes on but the fact that the opening tutorial isn't quite as streamlined as it could be 🤷
@@Ularg7070 just like hall of the novice. You have to know about it and go looking for it I think it should be part of the beginning tutorials. And a new intermediate/advanced hall should be introduced for people who boost.
I started the game around 2 months ago or so off the back of dissatisfaction with Blizzard and WoW, and I've never enjoyed JRPGs or Final Fantasy in general but I've found the game to be a massive breath of fresh air. A Realm Reborn - it can get a bit tedious, the delivery quests, go here kill 3 things quests, etc etc that just keep pushing along the quest can be painful and at times be very "filler quest" like. The thing is though, it pays off. Once you get past about level 40 - 45 in the MSQ it really kicks off the story hard, and especially through though the ARR patch content. By the time you hit its finale and about to go into Heavensward, it's just complete hype and all I want is more time in my day to play now I'm half way through Heavensward. One of the best things I did during ARR was try out nearly all the jobs to at least around level 15. See their abilities, story quests, gear, get a feel etc. The GCD does seem rough at first, but it improves with off GCD spells and its reached the point now on dragoon that I barely notice. What I love is that jobs feel more complex now than WoW with long combos and specific trigger mechanics and buff systems that need to be weaved in, when I jumped back to wow to raid log on my ret paladin it just felt so simple in comparison. Now I just want to level up more jobs and spread my time between them whilst pushing the story.
Great comment! I too bailed wow, 07/2020 (came back for 2 week of sl release, just meh by that point) and have been daily ff player since. this game is so rich with content, Im still unlocking stuff, etc. have a character omni 80 now, and so hype for EW.
oh that's fucking genius... i never really thought to try all classes to 15... because wow has always been on my brain, where you can't switch classes, you have to make an entirely new character and go through the same goddamn quests. With the game being like TOR with the unique storylines for each class that would let me get the feel for exactly what i want to play... I am a little pidgeon-holed in to my role, because i am a healer regardless of what MMO I play, that's just what I enjoy doing.... I still like to try other things out from time to time, i felt scholar was a natural fit because people told me it's way easier to level up if you've leveled up as a summoner.
Great review, hit the issues right on the head. Keep in mind Black Mage can be a tough class for leveling, it changes completely every 10 levels or so, and doesn't really feel complete until about lv 60. After 72 and on, it's great, simple but satisfying if you can execute it under pressure in raids and such.
blm was my first job and i loved it :D i switched to pugilist and gladiator for a bit, but levelled with thaumaturge and then blackmage to about 40 until i really started loving paladin and whitemage as well :D just the concept of trading in mobility for power and throwing destruction around is so cool :D
I don't play WoW, nor do I play FF14, so I don't have a horse in this race, I've watched and mostly lurked for a long time because I simply think you're a great content creator who's able to convey his thoughts well. Stopping to exclusively cover one game has been a blessing, because you're far too good a content creator to be stuck to one game, whichever game that may be.
@@iamrichlol Big Warcraft 3 fan back in the day. Tried WoW around 2011 but I didn't stick around, but it was Preach's videos back then and his guides on how to keybind etc that I watched before trying it out. Always stuck around since then because I enjoy his content and personality. Plus drama time is amazing.
Welcome to Hydaelyn, Preach! The GCD will become less of a concern as you level; get new spells, a proper rotation and some off-GCD abilities. Though if you want something a bit more movement-oriented, you may want to look into changing from Black Mage; as standing still is their entire shtick. Some jobs get access to attack/cast speed increases; such as Monk, Samurai and Ninja; or work with a special way of handling long cast-times such as Red Mage. Best advice is to just stick with it and let the gameplay evolve and grow.
It took me 6 tries to get into FFXIV, which all come down to my overwhelming myself. Once I focused on MSQ and job quests I rocketed through it. ARR is rough, but man does it reward your efforts. Once I hit Heavensward I was full throttle and I shot all the way through to complete Shadowbringers within about 2 months (maybe less). The journey was everything I had hoped and more. I actually consider the entirety of the experience to be amongst my most profound MMO experiences, right up there with the first time I saw Ultima Online during its Beta. It goes without saying that my deepest wish is that you take this journey in its entirety, and I genuinely do not think you would regret it at all. However, with that said, I appreciate how you approached this side quest journey into FFXIV. Heartbreaking to think of you not completing it, but joyous knowing you at least tried it out.
My experience exactly, down to the multiple attempts at the game. I really hope that he makes it through ARR. It's incredible to me how good this game gets. It will be a real shame if he doesn't get to see the game at its best, but it's a commitment, and I totally understand if he chooses not to.
Same for me. Only time I felt like that was UO on release. Logging in to Great Lakes, making a character, mining my way to riches and then the early dungeon runs are some of the best times I've had in an mmo.
As an MMO grinder, the MSQ burnout for someone who just wants to get into gameplay and play with other people is hugely real. Literally hours apon hours of cutscenes and dialog text. When I do stray off the path to side content I end up massively over levelled, I had to level up 3 other jobs just to stop that from happening.
i know you said your looking forward to dungeons just remember even the boss mechanics build up slow over time. first few dungeon will not be mechanic heavy at all. around level 41 when it starts get good for mechanics and they still add new mechanics over time or call back to one that you had not see for awhile.
Just remember to always do content unlock quests (blue quest icons with a plus symbol) and class/job quests every 5 levels (shown under the main story quest in the top left)! Also, these "collect x" quests are a lot better in ffxiv as there's no % drop rate, you'll always get the item, and they start being delegated to side quests later on.
@@Windupchronic that's not that bad. WoW started from the other end, and realized that making people kill 50 mobs for 4 items wasn't fun and generally it is one item every 2 mobs I think on average, and if they're all sidequests later on, you don't really need to do them from what I understand.
@@ExarchGaming When did WoW change that? When I quit playing in late May, I was still killing 50 antelope (when I could find live ones) for four horns to give to someone's winged kitty for chew toys. Something I like about FF better than WoW is also the respawn rate - they're consistent and you very rarely have to wait, let alone for ten minutes, for quest items to respawn so you can kill them and finish your quest. The respawn timers in WoW seem to be keyed to whenever it's the most inconvenient for the player - "Oh, you need to kill twenty of these before killing their boss? We'll put them on a ten-minute timer. Oh, you killed their boss? Muahahahahaha - ten-second timer now so you have to fight your way out."
It’s always entertaining seeing people’s first impression with 14. The game preach is playing is not the same game I’m playing. Shadowbringers is such an incredibly beautiful experience. The raids are very difficult, classes are complex. The fact that he’s enjoying ARR story means he’s set up to be utterly blown away by heavenward and shadowbringers.
@@Gotae27 Stormblood is only lesser in comparison to Heavensward and Shadowbringers. Compared to some other $60 games, Stormblood is really friggin cool.
After just finishing Heavensward I gotta say I think the highlight for me right now is the post ARR content leading up to the transition into HW and the beginning of HW - After all the praise I kind of expected a bit more of the rest
@@ZeepZerp Yep, that was my impression. Stormblood in isolation is quite good. It's major problem is that it followed the absolutely jawdropping story of Heavensward. To the point where people have been holding _in-game vigils_ at the house of the character that narrates the expansion (Edmont de Fortemps), as his voice actor (Stephen Critchlow) passed away last week.
@Preach Gaming On the longer global cool down (when compared to Wow): When I first started playing it felt a bit slow yes. But as soon as you start playing around with a melee DPS class it becomes kind of needed. Melee DPS skills are build around your position towards the enemy. For the most part if you are behind or to its flanks. You actually need to use the global cooldown to re-position before you use the next ability to do max damage.
@@dorn42 it doesn't once you get OGCD skills, it's one of the problems with the leveling experience, proper rotations don't kick in until level 60/70, there's actually more APM involved than in wow, Just check out any max level rotation.
Honestly it doesn’t really need to be a melee dps. Casters really don’t care that much about the gcd, expecially BLM since the cast times tend to be long enough for the gcd to be mostly a nonissue. Sure there is some 1 second downtimes here and there, but that is what your off gcd abilities are for. Tanks even have off gcds that they can use on occation, not including the normal defensives. Generally once you get to level 50 or so (earlier for some jobs that came out after ARR), the gcd is mostly a non-issue, since you got plenty to think about as it rolls. But yeah starting at level one its pretty painful.
@@dorn42 You can actually move quite little for positionals, as the flanks and the rear are 90 degree cones individually. You can stand on the dividing line of the target cursor for these positions and move to the right side with little movement (assuming tanks aren't doing jerky strafing or moving the boss too much). The main thing with the long global cooldown aside from leniency to high latency, is due to the way off global cooldown skills work. OGCDs in this game are actually meant to be used inbetween GCDs while the global cooldown is still going, rather than the way it is with, for example, most WoW off globals (that I've seen so far) where you still have to wait for your global cooldown to use them and then they cycle the GCD while having their own internal cooldown after being pressed. At most you can fit two OGCDs without clipping into your next GCD, as long as it's instant cast and you don't have copious amounts of skillspeed/haste (hello Monk and Ninja). Rather than GCD > wait 1.5 seconds > OGCD > wait 1.5 seconds > GCD, instead it's GCD > OGCD > OGCD > GCD all done in the space of 2.5 seconds. Machinist as an example has a skill that reduces their global cooldown to 1.5 for 8 seconds, which only allows them to fit in one OGCD between each global (and if you have high ping, you might not even be able to fit any at all which can severely hurt your DPS).
I am loving your first hours of play through Mike! Very fair assessment of the early game and love the idea of periodic reviews as you journey through the game. Hope you have fun!
ARR makes you appreciate everything that comes later. The story gets so, so good around 50+ and the gameplay just gets better and better. You'll really enjoy everything the later game has to offer, just power through ARR and take in the story.
@@krackawoody2556 I agree, looking back i am so thankful for all the character- and world building in ARR. Although I still wouldn't want to play through it again... the questing is bad.
Glad to see you're giving this a shot, Preach! Definitely stick with it until you get access to the skills that are off global cooldown. Not sure how many good ones the Black Mage has since it's one of my lesser played classes, but most classes get loads of buttons that you end up weaving in between casts. As you get into higher levels, they introduce extra gauges, resources, and mechanics to manage that totally change how you play each class. The rotations get a lot more intricate and the decision-making becomes more involved. Some of the melee at lower levels are literally just doing a 2 button combo over and over, but once you get to a higher level, you have like a 30+ button opener. You also have different jobs open up, like Dancer, which has a ton of procs, and those procs proc other procs. It's kind of like a ranged support version of WoD ret pally where you just have buttons lighting up all over the place.
Basically what Mike said... Most of out toolkit as a blm is hard casts or casts that trigger the gcd at best. Used to have more utility skills off the gcd to weave but now days...atleast we have triple cast? Still, love my blm.
@@barsonik3855 rdm I can definitely suggest. I honestly do for most people who want to try caster, but that unlock requirement can be a hurdle for some. As too drg, I feel drg starts waaaaaay slower then blm. But I feel like drg once at like 60ish, maybe early 50s, gets hella fun. Honestly I feel like alot of the early levels need adjustments to better reflect high levels, since they aren't mostly the same as their level 50 days...especially blm...
I'm super glad that you're enjoying yourself! Take it at a casual pace. Nobody is rushing you to get to end-game. I recently resubbed to all your channels on account of you telling Blizz to eat a bag of dirt and trying out FFXIV! Kudos to you for doing what's right!
He’s yet to take on any dungeons, too. I hope he with gods judgment on the first few of those, too! Really the game comes together all around like midway through Heavensward, I’d say, between instances starting to get really impressive and enough of a toolkit to keep things interesting.
@@farfalleall3 it's kind of both. A few spells from 1 to 50 are learned through job quest, the others naturally. Spells from 50 to 60 are learned through job quest. Spells from 62 to 68 are learned naturally. Spell 70 is again learn from the job quest and finally, up to 80 it's learned naturally again. I've upped some classes exclusively through Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High, and you end up with a weird tool kit, having the spells 62 to 68 but missing the spells from 50 to 60 ^^
Cant wait to see more! Glad Preach is doing ff content now, I'm on ARR atm coming from wow but I enjoy seeing other players having fun with FF. Definitely feels a lot more relaxing than wow.
Dude, I can't wait to see your reaction to raiding! Really curious to see if you'll like it. If you can make it to final coil of Coils of Bahamut, than I believe you will have a clear picture of what awaits you further into the many expansions. It is a gem of a raid and a hell of an experience, on all difficulties. Also, gameplay does pickup with off GCD talents later on. Also, really want to see you do Golden Saucer some day.
I believe he did a "guess what this mechanic is" in FF14 before, so he technically has some experience with how hard the high end raiding is. It was an hour long video of him trying to make sense of everything.
I just started Ff14 2 weeks ago, also coming from Wow, PoE and in my case D3, and this game totally gets better as you progress through the story. There is a lot this game got right and I'm told it gets better in the next expansion. I'm excited to follow this series and see how both your journey and thoughts progress. Cheers my friend
I was pretty confused when you said "Menagerie system", but then I realised you must have meant the Hunting Log! And yes, pretty much all classes start out very slow (I'm speaking of those that start at lvl 1 in particular) and you can feel the GCD on melees more, but it gets a lot busier when you're higher level, plus you start getting gear with Spell/Skill Speed on it (that said, of course not all jobs want Spell/Skill Speed, but that's another topic). In my experience, on some jobs you have so many things (off-GCDs) to fit into that GCD that sometimes you wish it was actually longer xDD But anyway, hope you keep having fun with the game! P.S. Don't get discouraged by ARR dungeons by the way, they're pretty boring, especially the earlier ones.
Preach, I appreciate you so much. I started this game 3 separate times, but have struggled to enjoy it coming from a WoW point of view. I started again recently and stopped skipping cutscenes and read the text, and honestly, I can’t put it down now. It’s such an endearing game that I’m trying to level all classes equally to make sure I don’t miss anything in story as I go. Thank you brother for putting your work out there. It inspires people to take a different approach to something they may not have appreciated otherwise.
Best thing about FF in comparison to WoW is that the quests that are like “collect hearts from these creatures” will give you the heart every single time. So you aren’t killing 20 mobs to get 6 hearts.
Thanks for sharing this Preach. I had played WoW from Vanilla day 1 to January 6th 2021 and was interested to see and hear what you had to say about FF14. Great insights and many things you mentioned resonated with me. Cheers and keep up the good work.
One thing: your character DOES stay silent, but various inside jokes and jokes from other characters sometimes makes this better. And trust me, you probably don’t want voice acting. In fallout 4, it was notorious for having a voice acted protagonist that many people didn’t connect with so they made mods called “Silent Protagonist” One of those differences you just get used to. I find it amusing these days when the character does the anime headnod. But I’m glad you’re enjoying and giving it a shot and not going in TOTALLY blind. Sure it’s a tough sell to have to trudge through a bunch of entry level content to get to the “good stuff” but you’ll learn later looking back the base game isn’t “bad” but that every seed it plants in terms of story and gameplay eventually gets improved so substantially and THATS why everyone says the later stuff is so much better. But hey, it’s final fantasy. These are NOTORIOUS for being long. Haha. Welcome! I came in as a WoW refugee a few months ago also and it’s really fun and i look forward to seeing all your thoughts as everything unfolds! :)
I think the problem with FO4 wasn't that your character was voice acted, it's that all their "choices" were basically the same thing but minor tone variation that meant nothing. It's basically going "yes I'll do it/yeah sure whatever/yeah why not" and pretending they make a difference. If you took the dialogue options of 3+New Vegas, sure you'd get less inflection than putting your own voice on the character, but they were insanely detailed choices. That, and 4 had the Mass Effect problem of having a tiny dialogue option that could end up saying something you didn't mean cause they were too lazy to show the full option.
as a long time sub of yours mike, and now a FF14 player (left wow in 7/2020), stoked to hear your thoughts. FF14 is the first and only game, my wife of 21 years, has played with me. She's a console player, me PC, and that we play together, is also another big win for this game. as so many have said, grind through the early rougher parts, and it really opens up. this game is super rich with content. hell, I'm still unlocking new stuff. Great video!
Yeah almost every single one of your gripes with gameplay are entirely addressed by the time you reach the end of the free content (around lvl 60, at the end of Heavensward). All your criticisms are accurate for ARR, 100%, and the fact that those problems still exist in the earliest parts of the game is another topic on it's own, but they really did go out of their to address everything the players had issue with, or in other words Blizzard doesn't run FF14 thankfully lol
@@filipfenix many people have commented already, but as you level, you start gaining off global abilities and spells to weave in between your globals. In most cases, you'll be double weaving off globals per global during burst windows. We're the global any substantial amount shorter, this wouldn't be possible, and you wouldn't be able to fit as much into your buff windows.
@@filipfenix Youre complaining about a 2.5gcd.... but are coming from a game like WoW where Paladins literally press one button every 8 to 9 seconds in classic..? Its not a crime, casters dont notice it, and melee have things to do during that time to the point of it being quicker than WoW. You have so many oGCD abillities to weave inbetween you dont notice the GCD.
I am excited you've started playing 14. You're one of my favorite content creators and ever since I fell out of love with WoW, I still watched your content but not as much as before. 14 is the MMO I' have played the longest and I think your approach to diving in is perfect. Keep up the awesome work! Nice hair!
ARR is severely hampered by the 1.0 Spaghetti code... when they build on it, it's actually fantastic. Heavensward was the first time they got to show what they could themselves, and it really shows I think!
There's no 1.0 code in ARR. It's a completely different engine. ARR's clunkiness is due to the fact that they had to rebuild the whole thing while also maintaining 1.x.
@@bobbytables464 They have made various comments about some things, even now, being hampered by having to build on that old code, since they simply did not have the time to fully rebuild it. I'm sure you can find the interviews on TH-cam from those early days!
When the Pharos Sirus dungeon theme started to play at 5:00 ... I literally got chills. Great video! The gameplay really does improve drastically, it's just unfortunate that they haven't gone back to the early gameplay and improved the pacing... hopefully at some point!
I did every single side quest in the entire game. I love questing, and I enjoy all the little stories that were told during it. Also a nice touch to meet familiar NPC's during holiday events or in the story or what have you who might recognize you. The dialogue changes depending on that. I can see how that would not be for everyone, but it made me smile.
@@YaboiBrent07 I'll take it as a compliment, cheers! I wanted to do it, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I met some memorable NPC's and experienced some more and some less meaningful little stories on the sidelines of the big, overarching plot.
I have to say: it starts slowly until you get to about 30. Garuda in MSQ. From there, it is a very respectable game. As expansions release and funding increased, the story only improves. More off global cooldown abilities really spice up the combat. I played wow from 2008-21 and started ff14 after CE this tier. Loving the game, just about on the last expansion. Haven't touched wow since. Though it's been a few months, I have not touched endgame but I look forward to it in my own time. The game is a little dated, it's clear they did their best with what they started with and have built upon it within their limitations. They are certainly investing money back into this game.
Word FF was epic 5 years ago too. To bad these ex wow players couldn't stop sucking blizzard off. Because of the money they were also making of wow. If these content creators were all playing FF and then come over to wow they would say the same shit.
@@Quickstepz-OG damn bro here u are helping preaches algorithm. You are doing a lot for "someone who makes money off others work". As YOU so claim. Absolute tool.
It's a little outdated through 4.0 due to having cross play with the PS3. Once support for PS3 dropped and they moved on to PS4 things got better. We will see another jump once enough people get PS5's and support for the PS4 gets dropped.
Thanks for giving the game a fair shot! Glad you're enjoying some aspects, and yeah I think most of your gripes will be mitigated as you level and reach more modern parts of the game. I've played all the jobs to max level and I can assure you once your Thaumaturge/Black Mage is leveled higher the combat will not feel slow. I think of all the jobs I found playing that one most stressful, in terms of properly executing my rotation while also dealing with fight mechanics. It's a challenging and rewarding job to learn to play!
Welcome! Excited to see your progression. Jumping straight into BLM, the leveling isn't going to fee lSUPER good until level 60 really, where your "main" class mechanic really kicks in. It is NOTORIOUS for feeling kinda bleh. That holds true for most classes though, and is absolutely a fair gripe and I think the devs have recognized this. The story only goes up and up and up from here though. If you are invested now, I'm excited to hear your thoughts once you've caught up.
Once you get the trait that makes F1 give free explosions, it becomes much better imo. Better than a lot of other classes anyways. But yes, once F4 is unlocked, the world opens up to blissful explosions..
It's fetch quests all the way down, the quest structure never fundamentally changes from teleport here and talk to NPC, possibly kill some enemies and then teleport to the next quest marker.
I know that there probably was already 10 people like me saying this, but as i dont have time atm to read the comments i will just add a thing about Voice Actors. Technicaly they only had around 18 months to create whole Realm Reborn after failiure that was 1.0. So they were really in a rush in all departments and one of the cut costs they had to do was voice acting.
Totally valid complaints for the early game. I felt a lot of the same. Thing i had to keep in mind is take it with a pinch of salt and consider the fact it's the "PS3 era" ..which is absolutely improved upon in later expansions.
@@GloomSkullCandy first hour? not sure about that one. I know Josh Strife Hayes did a video about "it gets good 100 hours in". If you're going into ANY MMO expecting to love it within an hour you're setting yourself up for failure. There will usually be a point in the story/gameplay/world/event/whatever that just "clicks" and you start becoming invested but FF is definitely a slow burn (it was for me at least) that didn't really grip me until mid-way through Heavensward. Coming from a WoW player that started in late TBC all the way up to around 4 months ago when i eventually threw in the towel and said fuck this, you have absolutely nothing to lose by trying.. it's literally free up to level 60.
Preach, it is so nice to see you again. I left WoW 10 yrs. ago and that meant many of my regular "need to watch" WoW creators went on the back burner. Happy to see you doing you and keep it going my man.
JUST WAIT till you get to HW and later expansions! HOLY CRAP it get SO good(Voice acting included)! i went from never playing an MMO in my entire life (aside from some Runescape and WOW in my early years) to FFXIV and im hooked, i literally spend every second of my free time on it. i never once thought id love it this much! And i picked it up rather quickly. IMO you will enjoy it!
Yeah FFXIV slaps so hard and its kinda funny that they completely changed the voice actors and added a lot more voice acting at the start of HW since they originally had a very small budget for 2.0
@@cas6382 Aymeric turned out to be my favourite character throughout post ARR and heavensward, just because his voiceacting was so much better than anything in ARR. (Also turns out to be an amazing character nonetheless)
@@Fouweior Blake Ritson do be like that. Voice of Alvis in Xenoblade, quite possibly the only man I heard narrate audio dramas and audiobooks simply because I love his voice. (And I'm straight, lol.)
The hunting log was a system they implemented because there were very few ways to level up during ARR and you could run out of quests to do to level up alt classes. Now there are so many ways to level alts that they are hardly needed.
They're only really helpful for 1-15/16 before you can go in duties with them (16 being the second one so the class can do the Leveling Roulette from the start). Once you can get in dungeons, your EXP speeds up so fast, it's ridiculous.
Man, you're on the money with those closing thoughts. "It makes no sense... But it's fun". Like literally, one job (Blue Mage) is literally an unbalanced mess that learns spells from monsters (literally, you learn abilities from enemies, by getting hit) and you can select a full class's worth of spells from your own collection (over 100 spells can be learned, up to 24 or 28 can be selected as active spells to use). They made it so you can't queue Blue Mage into regular matchmaking from Duty Finder, but only with either pre-made parties (There is also a Party Finder for stuff like this) or solo-ing the content. And let me tell you, it gets cartoonishly weird, but it is so much fun. Pulling a Yoshi-like tongue pull followed by dropping a magical hammer on your enemy and interrupting enemy cats by throwing a fish in their face. It makes no sense. But it is fun!
I'm actually glad that you waited a bit to start FFXIV. So many people were starting FFXIV at the same time that I couldn't watch everyone with the same level of dedication.
I was amused about your comments about the player character being emotionless because I've had the opposite reaction. Yes, there's that little solemn nod (which they even make fun of at some point), but your character is also portrayed in cutscenes as puzzled, thoughtful, angry, sad. Much more expressiveness than I've seen in other games.
I think the emotional impact becomes a lot more apparent later on when actions speak louder than words. When a character might thank you for sticking by their side and helping them through a hard time, and you give that soft consoling nod. "that's what friends are for." It's almost like reading a book now that I think about it. A book is just words without graphics, but you build up a story that your mind understands, and in the end it becomes much more vibrant.
In terms of player character being expressive, you can't top SWTOR, tho. I do recommend a peek if you are the kind of player that likes that kind of thing.
Im glad you brought up the map issue - it really put off the start of the game and I found myself spending more time planning my route and navigation than actually travelling there!
Just as a warning that I'm sure you've heard before, gameplay takes a while to pick up. In my case it happened at around level 57. Dungeons and normal content are intended to be easy so every player can experience the story. Hope you enjoy your journey in Eorzea! :)
Welcome to 14, Preach! I hope you enjoy, buddy! Yes, things start off kinda slow but it picks up as you progress. Good luck on your adventure and hope you have a load of fun!
One thing that really makes all the difference, imo, is the crowd sound in places full of people... That "noise" really makes the city feel like a city. Btw, I really can't wait to see you discovering the Saucer.
And it doesn't just happen in the cities. I was in Outer La Noscea when a level 50 hunt add popped up - someone shouted it out and ten minutes later it sounded like I was standing in Aetherite Plaza in Limsa.
Thanks for giving FFXIV a try! Its definitely my favorite MMO nowadays, even after playing WoW for over 10 years. I'm really excited to see your journey and hear your thoughts as you progress through the early content and beyond!
I’m so glad you are playing 14… even if you end up deciding it’s not for you I’m just glad you gave it a shot. I have enjoyed your content since Pandaria and you were always my favourite WoW creator. Sadly when I quit in BFA I stopped watching the vids because WoW felt like an abusive relationship I finally got out of. I’ll be happily lurking in the streams while you play through the game.
Accurate and fair. The black mage experience in particular is something I relate to strongly. I wasn't even aware of the GCD until I tried another class, and I believe that helped me get through the early parts of the game without getting frustrated with the gameplay. Looking forward to seeing how your journey goes.
I can tell you from experience Preach, how the game flows and plays at the early levels you're at is NOTHING like how the game feels and plays at max level. It's totally an apples vs oranges comparison. Frankly, the first 60 or so levels feel like a tutorial in a lot of ways and it's a pretty slow ramp up. Once you get to 70 and eventually 80, you can tell that the training wheels come off, you have your entire tool-kit, the whole 2.5 second GCD thing becomes totally irrelevant, and you absolutely will see that at higher levels if you stick with the game. Can't stress that enough. Honestly though, I went into 14 thinking I was going to hate it. I only decided to download it because Asmon and other WoW content creators decided to try it out. WoW is pretty much the only MMO I've known for 15+ years and I thought there was zero chance 14 could live up to that standard. But then a week passed by and I was still playing. Then another week. Then a month.. and yup, still playing the game. Pretty much the same sort of thing that happened with Asmon. Ended up liking the game way more than anyone thought, and the same is true with me. I've been subbed for a little over two months and my /playtime right now is astronomically high for that amount of time. It is the ONLY game I've played these last two months, I've leveled multiple jobs to 80, finished the MSQ, did a lot of extreme trials and some savage raid content, and it's been a blast. The raid design, mechanics, difficulty, has thoroughly impressed me as a former mythic raider in WoW. Impressed me to the point that I pre-ordered Endwalker weeks ago once I first got a taste of the end-game content. I hope you stick with the game and see it through to 80 with your stream. It'll make for great content. I think if you get to 80 and do some of the high-end content, you're going to totally understand why a lot of people love this game. The story is another topic all-together(I loved it) but I'll leave it at that. Straight up, I haven't felt this excited about playing an MMO since probably WOTLK, and the same goes for how hyped I am to take part in my first expansion launch with Endwalker coming out in a couple months. It's been an unreal experience so far.
Well no, black mage does feel pretty much the exact same at these early levels as it does at max. Obviously there are minor differences like Fire 4 spam instead of Fire 1 or having an instant that deals non-negative amount of damage when you need to move (Xenoglosy) but, still overall pretty much the exact same.
The funny thing about the mounts being immersion breaking, is that they are all actually cannon in their own way. Almost every mount is something that exists somewhere in the world independently. There are a few cash shop ones that are not but in the descriptions for them they are tied into the world. For instance, the fat cat mount you saw is actually a voidsent possessing a dead cat corpse.
Going through the entire story beginning to end 1-80 for the second time now that my wife started playing. Last time I played through ARR was just about 8 years ago. Dude it is no sweat. It's slow at times, the voice acting is bad but it's a chill time. I think people complaining have never read a book, forgotten how to game, or played too much Fortnite or something. Take your shoes off grab a beer and relax for an hour or two at a time, pay attention and the story is over in no time.
You know whats annoying? Making assumptions out of people, even if you didnt meant it you sound like an ass. I love this game and all three expansions, but the start is painful. No i dont play fortnite, yes i read books and i dont know wtf you mean with forgetting how to game. You enjoy it? Excellent im happy for you but dont try to go invalidating how others feel like there is something wrong with because they dont share your taste.
People have their various reasons for not liking stuff. I know how to read, never touched Fortnite, played a lot of old games, and I still don’t like ARR all that much. It’s not end of the world terrible. It’s not truly bad. I’ve played through both versions of ARR, before and after the revamp, and I enjoyed myself. But once I hit Heavensward and the quality lived up to the name (forgive the bad joke), I realized that whoa, ARR was actually kinda a messy start. Its pacing is literally all over the place. The VA work is embarrassing for 2012. You had quests clearly meant to pad out playtime until the next patch came out. The storyline did not really come together or have a cohesive whole until 2.4 when we start moving into Pre Heavensward lore building. Before then, we’re fighting disparate primals. ARR is not bad, but it feels like eating a burger from McDonald’s. It will feed you, and you might really like burgers from McDonald’s! The burger is good. But as FFXIV started to get its own identity and moved away from the panic development era of “If we don’t get this out we’ll go bankrupt” they started making steaks. Higher quality meals, more filling and satisfying. Some people will then look at the burger and go “It’s crap, I hate it,” but the burger is fine. It’s just that we’ve been fed steak now, so we want steak, not burgers. I fully believe that if the current development team redid ARR from the ground up, knowing what was truly important to keep for story and what needed to be redone or cut, it would be a whole different beast than what we have. They don’t need to do that, of course, and they probably never will - they’re getting plenty of people playing this game even with the clunky ARR experience. But imagine getting a steak form of ARR instead of the McDonald’s burger. I’d be so incredibly happy.
Who said that I liked ARR? I don't. the point is that it takes gamer willpower. I had to realize that if I don't have the willpower to defeat words on the screen and some cutscenes I wouldn't have the willpower to defeat hard content in the game.
I've always loved your WoW content. Even though I stopped playing in BFA. I'm glad you had a great first day and I am looking forward to more content! By around level 30/40 is when you feel combat start to change. oGCDs by then make combat much, much more fun. You end up weaving 2 or 3 OGCDs between the global cooldown all the time.
Actually agree with you entirely on all fronts. Very excited to see you get into the later content, especially when you can start doing the Trials and Extreme Trails, I think you'll really like those.
My only advice for FF14 lvl 60 is generally when classes get good, the gcd stuff is better at that point, if you stay BLM then fire 4 is when it feels good to play, blood of thr DRG for dragoon, your full melee combo for RDM…it’s not the best argument for gameplay, but if you make it thru post ARR slog you are heavily rewarded in gameplay and story
Hi Preach. I love your streaming and your videos a lot, and i feel happiness when i watch your stuff. Keep it up. :D I have played FFXIV since first day because i played FFXI Online back on X360 days.
To give people a bit of background who maybe haven't watched the stream before. During the subathon one of the stretch goals was to play FFXIV, and then one of the other ones was to name his character and choose his race by poll. Hence why he is femroe and his name is Floor Inspector (a running joke on the channel). He got to choose the job.
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Watching this 2 years later and knowing how Preach's journey went... this puts one helluva smile on my face.
Literally everything in the game gets better with time. The combat, the story, the zones, the voice acting, the battle content. I can't wait to see Preach's reaction when he gets into Heavensward, when the game improves very considerably. Nice video. I enjoyed it :)
EXACTLY in wow i kinda feel everything after legion or mop was just a downgrade while in FF14 every expansion always feels like a upgrade which makes it so much better
I just finished the main Stormblood story, and it was better than really any WoW expansion - and it's not even as good as Heavensward (IMO). The difference between Stormblood and ARR is night and day - I'm loving it all... Even the normal dungeons are interesting with interesting mechanics, and the Royal Menagerie fight was downright amazing... Though, Pool of Tribute/Susano is my favorite boss fight so far. So damn fun.
Low levelling suffers from pruning the same way WoW does, they moved most of the skills to much higher levels. Means the early levels are braindead simple and frankly boring for experienced players. Just have to push through it.
i just finished ARR 2.X and MY FEELS!!!
That's just a polite way of saying the game is piss easy and boring at the beginning. Problem is, first impressions count for a lot. I quit after a week because every single thing I did was piss easy. The game's building up these quests and storylines about how evil and dangerous something is, everyone is terrified of it, then I get the quest to finally confront this terrifying and dangerous evil and my hit points never drop below 98%. That's dogshit.
My first impression of WoW, when they talked about encroaching Murlocs, I found two dead guards by the river, their corpses ripped apart, then the murlocs ripped me apart. The world actually felt dangerous and challenging.
I picked dragoon early on and also got really worried about the 2.5 second gcd, however...
Starting with heavensward it turned really quickly from "eurgh i'm falling asleep" to "i don't know how to weave off-gcds into my rotation while doing positionals and ever increasing boss mechanics, send help".
the distribution of mechanics and APM is very top heavy 1-50. I wish they gave 15-30 a bit more of the stuff you got around 30-50 so that the learning curve and difficulty is a bit smoother.
Them long DRG combos and blood of the dragon up time etc is really fun to manage.
I know its unpopular but I cant stand barely any jobs below 70. Luckily they have a way to boost alt jobs for people like me who just want to jump into the jobs with their full kit. And its cheaper than wow's boosts which help.
I wish I could send help, but it will only get worse.
You'll get even more off-gcd skills, even more positionals, skills that combo into skills that are part of a different combo and special buffs that allow you to use even more skills.
@@MrCriistiano And i will enjoy every second of it while i fail my way to the top, haha!
One of my favorite things about FF14 is how a quest to collect something only requires you to kill 3-4 of that mob.
"Collect 3 stag tails" means you only need to kill 3 stags. Boom! easy. No 10% drop rate or some garbage like that.
iirc those world first class devs said those RNG give players more feeling of achievement if they got that rat tail after all the grinds.
YEA SURE lmao
@@Snorlax9 lmfao they really said that? LITERALLY NO ONE feels a sense of achievement from a 5 percent item drop quest, all anyone feels is absolute fucking annoyance lol. It may be true for really rare like mounts... (to me it's just annoying, so i don't bother grinding for that shit, since mostly the mounts available to me through whatever other system are just as good... like iron-bound protodrake)
@@ExarchGaming not the rat tail but the gears and other drops, but thats what they reply when shit ton of RNG were added to the game back then in WoD iirc
@@Snorlax9 Ah okay I understand now.
Even grinding mats for crafting is relitively fast, even getting all the LV80 mats for the Crafter's Role quest items in Shadowbringers.
"The cities are packed"
He hasn't even hit Limsa yet. Keep that in mind.
tbf, with so many people in game now, limsa people are starting to spill into other cities. And those said cities are getting packed too.
He also picked the worse city for the map.
@@timmytonberry3246 agreed. I don't like ul'dah very much. Most confusing of the cities. Worst look too. Gridania is super easy to move around in, but also really boring to me. I can see why so many more people are in limsa even without its racy reputation. It's gorgeous. Kind moderately difficult to get around, but for the aesthetic I'll deal. Plus once you get all crystals it isn't bad at all. .
I was born in the uldah, molded by it, while you navigated noscea with boyish eyes I was becoming a man, by the time I saw the easy navigation that was the teleport, it was BLINDING
Have you heard the tales of Balmung's Quicksand Inn? It's hella jam packed with people.
“Fates sync your level and prevents you from using higher level abilities”
Laughs in blue mage
Laughs in actual Job :P
@@thedarkfox9851 laughs in limited job being the most OP job in the game :p
And the 12 bless blue mage for heavensward fate grinds 🙏
@@hexi1722 those instant death abilities do be very satisfying in fates full of mobs. Rams voice -> ultravibration -> Fate cleared with a gold medal xD
*Laughs in missile*
The recommended gear button at the top of your character window, is your best friend. Specially while lvling to make sure you wearing the right things.
Except when you're a tank who has leveled something else before, in that case it may throw some horrible recommendations at you. The recommendation button only takes into account the main stat (which for tanks it considers to be VIT), so if there's something in your armory that has 1 point of VIT more than your current item, it'll recommend that, even if this replacing item has no STR and like a quarter of the defenses. Always best to sanity check it just in case!
Preach always does things his own way. I like how he, unlike any other content creator I can think of, just shut the door on Warcraft, and never looked back. That is incredibly brave, given his occupation and fanbase.
Lot of wow content creators did that.
Cmon guys wait at least a year before saying NEVER looked back, its been like two months by now. Yeah blizzards been ablosute dump shit for years now, who knows what its gonna be in five years. Never and always are just bad ways to see most things
Well Mike also hasn't liked the game for a loong time. Whereas other creators actually do like wow. The lawsuit wasn't what made Mike quit
Pyromancer
It took him 3 years to quit....
He only quit because of the bandwagon.. Stop riding these uploaders. Content creators my ass.
They make vids from others work.
The "keeping you engaged with distractions" thing is really spot on - I ended up getting to Heavensward nearly a month after I would have if I"d just played through the story because I saw someone zoom past on a flying chair mount and I dropped everything to level alchemist for several weekends in a row.
I love his pacing actually. Going through ARR super chill is nice. I'm glad he's comfy reading stuff because a lot of WoW friends of mine skip through tips and text too quickly and can't figure out where anything is.
Dude same, a guy who just joined my FC also said he skipped almost everything because he wanted to catch up, even tho he loves the story. I really can't understand these people.
@@rRekko i can get them to an extend playing it myself atm and had only 1 time the feeling of "oh boi lets rush it" when the regalia was added and i never even once was in the gold saucer then (in the span of 2 days) i rushed the 200k mgp and was done able to just rollback to the story
Yeah i feel you man, almost all the friends i invited to play FFXIV has skipped almost all the story, they don't even know what is happening xD
That’s sad, imagine skipping all the beautiful moments of the game just to “catch” up, I wish people would look at the game as if each expansion is its own single player game with an mmo attached to it, skipping anything in this game imo is just not a good idea for ones own experience in game and and expectations one would have if just starting, and that’s coming from an ex wow player who beat the MSQ in 3 months, I’m at the end game and now I’m bored, farming bis gear and etc stuff is great fun and all but this game the real content is the story, and if people can’t enjoy that before even reaching the last MSQ, because they wanna just raid and that’s it? Then they will be highly dissatisfied by endgame, unless glam, the raids, and a few other small niche things at end are their cup of TEA heheh. I’m a 526 ilvl NIN btw on my way to being an Omnicrafter :)
In my friend group as punishment for people who clicked through ARR we make them watch the super long cinematic before they enter Heavensward. They literally had no idea what was coming because they clicked through all the foreshadowing it's actually pretty funny xD. For me I start to get annoyed when people skip even the short blurbs the explains skills and mechanics. For example during the regalia event someone kept ignoring the notes about Warp-Strike and therefore kept failing. JUST READ IT.
Solid and unbiased evaluation. It ramps up in Heavensward, slows a bit in Stormblood, picks up the pace again and then it never stops.
I just hit 80 and I have 100+ hours of raid content to do even before the new expansion not to mention crafting and side content. Amazing game.
It's amazing for new guys! For some of us who have been for a while here, there has been a content draught since winter, point being when you catchup, there's plenty of free time where you can do other stuff like play other games. This can be good or bad depending on people I guess >
Im in Havensward and around lvl 56, I have a blast and will try to reach 80 before endwalker will release^^ will be a wild ride but I will enjoy it^^ my biggest success to this point are the 3 raid towers and that I got onion knight and cloud as pets from them ! Really lucky I rolled both of them !
@@Larudantex1991 I got the puff cloud too
The problem is finding people to actually do that raid content with.
No it doesn't slows in stormblood, all the expansions are amazing u guys just love flashy things and since stormblood is not flashy so u Don't like heck I kinda prefer in some parts stormblood over shadowbringers
Took me a few tries to get into the game, starting a couple years ago. Gotta say, finished Shadowbringers about a month ago and it is one of the best RPGs I've ever experienced. It's hard to disassociate from WoW but once I was able to, what a ride. What. a ride.
Also finished Shadowbringers about a month ago, what an utterly incredible story it is.
I'm on my second try, and once I started to not play it like WoW and just stuck to MSQ + Job Quests + Blue Unlock quests it got so much better. So many of the side quests are just a waste of time that really make it a worse experience.
I originally started FFXIV back in ARR so I was curious how bad the originally leveling was so I made an alt and I couldn't believe that Lahabrea actually told you the grand design of the Ascians when you first met him but we didn't understand. In my opinion the build up from ARR to Shadowbringers is honestly one of the most incredible feats of story telling in gaming it just blew my mind they plotted this 8 years ago and I can't wait for Endwalker!
Remember us.
Also took me a long time. Had to give up on WM and move to NIN before I could stand to play.
19:00 There's a great story writer, she started with dungeon quests, then got rogue, ninja, Dark Knight, and after that main writer of shadowbringers, and co main writer of endwalker! highly recommend her classes/class stories, I absolutely fell in love with the DK.
People forget that she also wrote Stormblood. Which means she wrote Lyse. *shudder*
Shadowbringers absolute blows every story out of this world, fucking loved it
@@Ranziel1 iirc Ishikawa was responsible for the doman side of sb so we can't really pin the big blame on her
Mike, just an fyi, when you are using a spell with a cast time, you can move in the last .2-.5 seconds of the cast (I don't remember the exact number) without interrupting your own cast if you need to get out of an enemy aoe.
It varies with ping but yea more or less that.
@@ichigo9171 that makes perfect sense.
its actually the same thing with WoW, it just depends on your ping
@@tylerlnx138 You can move sooner in this game though, it feels that way. With Wow, it was at the very last split second.
@@tylerlnx138 it's different from WoW - what you're thinking of with WoW is ping during that last split second of cast, in FFXIV it is the last 0.5s of cast + ping
12:30 preach has been spared the pre-nerf “pray return to the waking sands” chain
I actually like that the tutorials pop up after. They let you figure it out, but also eliminate that feeling you get in games of "Wait what did I just do? How did I do that? What is that?" by explaining it after so you know for next time.
yeah me too
They're also available even before you do them but you have to go through the help menu to find them before you do the action.
If they added a snall notification that a tutorial text is available just before you need it. One thats not a giant window. You can click it or figure it out for yourself. Then the normal window pops up like normal.
It isn't by design. It's happening because there were originally side-quests that players would pick up in the starting cities that would trigger those tutorials earlier. Now that leveling is more streamlined, all side-quests are optional and usually skipped.
@@austin4855 yeah now that u say it
Some of these tutorials actually appear from some of the very first side quests in the city as you accept the the quest, teaching you some basic systems (using items at specific points, handing over items, using emotes, etc). While the tutorials will still trigger later on if you never did that side quest, it does, unfortunately, appear after you've already 'done the thing'.
Your complaint about your character being a bit expressionless will get a lot better later on, as the game has been adding more emotes with basically every patch to allow the character to be more expressive. It can also vary by race, as IIRC my Hyur Midlander Female was more expressive to start with as far as I remember. Edit: Also, the gameplay issue is mainly due to how the dev team pruned the ability bloat in Heavensward and especially Stormblood by removing some of the early additions. Starting in Shadowbringers they started using a different method of rebalancing the classes with the new expansions to avoid breaking the early gameplay, but it was a bit late by that point.
Yeah, I think most people agree that race choice can have a huge impact on your experience, just because of their character emotes and expression. I went with cat girl and it's possibly the most expressive of all races and never once did I think it was expressionless even at the beginning of the game. Female Hroethgar is one of the least used races and when I think about it I guess they are kind of expressionless. Maybe they get better later in the game.
@@ggg21201 I would assume you mean female Roe since fem hrothgar is still in development.
@@ggg21201 Female Hrothgar? They're not in the game yet. They'll be added later.
You mean Female Roegadyn right?
I think it also grows on you too and becomes a meme that you enjoy and gives a bit of a chuckle
@@ggg21201 This is subjective but I actually switched *from* Miqo because they were...too expressive, to the point it felt fake, and went with Viera, who many people think are boring and emotionless but I love their "cut to the point" bad bitch attitude.
It's always a great idea in FFXIV to avoid doing the side quests on your "main" job, if you can resist the urge. Because most quests are not repeatable, if you save the side quests for later, you can use them to help level up another job on the same character, and you can play ALL jobs on just one character. That said, always do the "blue" quests if you can (blue quest markers) as they unlock extra systems for you (such as the dye system, materia for crafting, the gold saucer, etc...)
I did like that.
And when I start leveling my 2nd job - I was doing just FATE-content.
But not all blue-quests open something noteworthy. Levequest openers for example.
@@doctorowl2004 Levequest completion actually gives up a stupid amount of EXP in a short span of time. It's actually a ridiculously fast way to level up gathering or crafting classes, and is useful for speed leveling DPS classes as you can hit fates, then Levequests, and turn in the Levequests and pick up more otw to the next fate (or while waiting for fates in your level area to pop up). Not to mention, completing a certain number of Levequests gives you a massive EXP bonus each week (up to half a level or more).
.... This is coming from a person that leveled all classes to max like a nob.
@@Exile_Sky Ye, I know that it's a good source of EXP. And yes - 'tis the best way when you exp DPS class, an' use LFG in the same time)
But I don't know why have they made feature-quests to each levequest-spot? =)
It's all what I mean about it.
Sorry from my language, it isn't my native))
@@Exile_Sky crafters and gatherers yes, DoW/DoM, hell no. Levequests for battle classes is the least efficient way to level.
And most importantly, aether current HW and on. I focused on those and MSQ and easily leveled. Flight makes doing other jobs so much better
Oh, I think I know why you got some of those Tutorials at a weird time. In the main Cities (for you Ul'dah) there are normal quests around Level 1-3 that are meant to be the Tutorials. So you pick up those quests and the Tutorial triggers and shows you what to do before you do it. Since yous skipped those they triggered after you have done what they're supposed to teach you.
Yep he got the tutorials then because he skipped the usual progression path (ie doing side quests)
@@TheSilverwing999 that's the problem of ffxiv not preach. they need to redo the tutorial system. im fed up of asking sprouts where are their shoes during titan normal.
@@mosh.4245 Lmao titan normal is so easy I highly doubt you need to go around asking sprouts about their shoes. Chill your OCD out and just press the buttons. Lmao some people are wild
@@Valvad0ss I don't think he's mad about sprouts not having shoes on but the fact that the opening tutorial isn't quite as streamlined as it could be 🤷
@@Ularg7070 just like hall of the novice. You have to know about it and go looking for it I think it should be part of the beginning tutorials. And a new intermediate/advanced hall should be introduced for people who boost.
I started the game around 2 months ago or so off the back of dissatisfaction with Blizzard and WoW, and I've never enjoyed JRPGs or Final Fantasy in general but I've found the game to be a massive breath of fresh air.
A Realm Reborn - it can get a bit tedious, the delivery quests, go here kill 3 things quests, etc etc that just keep pushing along the quest can be painful and at times be very "filler quest" like. The thing is though, it pays off. Once you get past about level 40 - 45 in the MSQ it really kicks off the story hard, and especially through though the ARR patch content. By the time you hit its finale and about to go into Heavensward, it's just complete hype and all I want is more time in my day to play now I'm half way through Heavensward.
One of the best things I did during ARR was try out nearly all the jobs to at least around level 15. See their abilities, story quests, gear, get a feel etc.
The GCD does seem rough at first, but it improves with off GCD spells and its reached the point now on dragoon that I barely notice. What I love is that jobs feel more complex now than WoW with long combos and specific trigger mechanics and buff systems that need to be weaved in, when I jumped back to wow to raid log on my ret paladin it just felt so simple in comparison.
Now I just want to level up more jobs and spread my time between them whilst pushing the story.
You channeled your Hatred of wow to power through ARR
Similar to WoW there is skill/spell speed that reduces the GDC too, so combat naturally gets faster.
Great comment! I too bailed wow, 07/2020 (came back for 2 week of sl release, just meh by that point) and have been daily ff player since. this game is so rich with content, Im still unlocking stuff, etc. have a character omni 80 now, and so hype for EW.
oh that's fucking genius... i never really thought to try all classes to 15... because wow has always been on my brain, where you can't switch classes, you have to make an entirely new character and go through the same goddamn quests. With the game being like TOR with the unique storylines for each class that would let me get the feel for exactly what i want to play...
I am a little pidgeon-holed in to my role, because i am a healer regardless of what MMO I play, that's just what I enjoy doing.... I still like to try other things out from time to time, i felt scholar was a natural fit because people told me it's way easier to level up if you've leveled up as a summoner.
Great review, hit the issues right on the head.
Keep in mind Black Mage can be a tough class for leveling, it changes completely every 10 levels or so, and doesn't really feel complete until about lv 60. After 72 and on, it's great, simple but satisfying if you can execute it under pressure in raids and such.
100% agree with that love playing blm now hated lvling it
blm was my first job and i loved it :D i switched to pugilist and gladiator for a bit, but levelled with thaumaturge and then blackmage to about 40 until i really started loving paladin and whitemage as well :D
just the concept of trading in mobility for power and throwing destruction around is so cool :D
Agreed, I found BM to be really boring gameplay wise in ARR. When you hit lvl 60 and got all the HW skills it changes a lot and actually becomes fun.
You forgot to mention the most important part of a black mage.....
EXPLOSIONS!
@@acidosis1985 explosions !!! And the boss turning it's attention to you coz you are doing alot of damage
Preach man. The moment you said you played plenty of the FFs, it was then I knew you were in for one hell of a treat. Enjoy it!
I don't play WoW, nor do I play FF14, so I don't have a horse in this race, I've watched and mostly lurked for a long time because I simply think you're a great content creator who's able to convey his thoughts well. Stopping to exclusively cover one game has been a blessing, because you're far too good a content creator to be stuck to one game, whichever game that may be.
Why on earth are you here then haha
@@iamrichlol Big Warcraft 3 fan back in the day. Tried WoW around 2011 but I didn't stick around, but it was Preach's videos back then and his guides on how to keybind etc that I watched before trying it out. Always stuck around since then because I enjoy his content and personality. Plus drama time is amazing.
@@nigelm5539 I don't care at all what mmo he plays and cover as long as I get my sweet drama time video about guild drama
Welcome to Hydaelyn, Preach!
The GCD will become less of a concern as you level; get new spells, a proper rotation and some off-GCD abilities. Though if you want something a bit more movement-oriented, you may want to look into changing from Black Mage; as standing still is their entire shtick.
Some jobs get access to attack/cast speed increases; such as Monk, Samurai and Ninja; or work with a special way of handling long cast-times such as Red Mage.
Best advice is to just stick with it and let the gameplay evolve and grow.
It took me 6 tries to get into FFXIV, which all come down to my overwhelming myself. Once I focused on MSQ and job quests I rocketed through it. ARR is rough, but man does it reward your efforts. Once I hit Heavensward I was full throttle and I shot all the way through to complete Shadowbringers within about 2 months (maybe less). The journey was everything I had hoped and more. I actually consider the entirety of the experience to be amongst my most profound MMO experiences, right up there with the first time I saw Ultima Online during its Beta. It goes without saying that my deepest wish is that you take this journey in its entirety, and I genuinely do not think you would regret it at all. However, with that said, I appreciate how you approached this side quest journey into FFXIV. Heartbreaking to think of you not completing it, but joyous knowing you at least tried it out.
My experience exactly, down to the multiple attempts at the game. I really hope that he makes it through ARR. It's incredible to me how good this game gets. It will be a real shame if he doesn't get to see the game at its best, but it's a commitment, and I totally understand if he chooses not to.
Thats my experience too but I'm currently in StB.
Same for me. Only time I felt like that was UO on release. Logging in to Great Lakes, making a character, mining my way to riches and then the early dungeon runs are some of the best times I've had in an mmo.
@@autisonm Glad to see you’re enjoying it, but the best is yet to come :)
As an MMO grinder, the MSQ burnout for someone who just wants to get into gameplay and play with other people is hugely real. Literally hours apon hours of cutscenes and dialog text. When I do stray off the path to side content I end up massively over levelled, I had to level up 3 other jobs just to stop that from happening.
i know you said your looking forward to dungeons just remember even the boss mechanics build up slow over time. first few dungeon will not be mechanic heavy at all. around level 41 when it starts get good for mechanics and they still add new mechanics over time or call back to one that you had not see for awhile.
Just remember to always do content unlock quests (blue quest icons with a plus symbol) and class/job quests every 5 levels (shown under the main story quest in the top left)! Also, these "collect x" quests are a lot better in ffxiv as there's no % drop rate, you'll always get the item, and they start being delegated to side quests later on.
Well, almost always. Later in the game you will run into quests where you might have to kill 5 or 7 to get 3 items. It does pop up later.
Then you start doing DoL quests.... or weapon quests...
You don't have to do all blue quests. Zepla has a good video showing what can be safely skipped until later
@@Windupchronic that's not that bad. WoW started from the other end, and realized that making people kill 50 mobs for 4 items wasn't fun and generally it is one item every 2 mobs I think on average, and if they're all sidequests later on, you don't really need to do them from what I understand.
@@ExarchGaming When did WoW change that? When I quit playing in late May, I was still killing 50 antelope (when I could find live ones) for four horns to give to someone's winged kitty for chew toys.
Something I like about FF better than WoW is also the respawn rate - they're consistent and you very rarely have to wait, let alone for ten minutes, for quest items to respawn so you can kill them and finish your quest. The respawn timers in WoW seem to be keyed to whenever it's the most inconvenient for the player - "Oh, you need to kill twenty of these before killing their boss? We'll put them on a ten-minute timer. Oh, you killed their boss? Muahahahahaha - ten-second timer now so you have to fight your way out."
It’s always entertaining seeing people’s first impression with 14. The game preach is playing is not the same game I’m playing. Shadowbringers is such an incredibly beautiful experience. The raids are very difficult, classes are complex. The fact that he’s enjoying ARR story means he’s set up to be utterly blown away by heavenward and shadowbringers.
But not stormblood :P
@@Gotae27 Stormblood is only lesser in comparison to Heavensward and Shadowbringers. Compared to some other $60 games, Stormblood is really friggin cool.
After just finishing Heavensward I gotta say I think the highlight for me right now is the post ARR content leading up to the transition into HW and the beginning of HW - After all the praise I kind of expected a bit more of the rest
@@Gotae27 stormblood is great, imo just not on the same level as those two (strictly from a MSQ perspective)
@@ZeepZerp Yep, that was my impression. Stormblood in isolation is quite good. It's major problem is that it followed the absolutely jawdropping story of Heavensward. To the point where people have been holding _in-game vigils_ at the house of the character that narrates the expansion (Edmont de Fortemps), as his voice actor (Stephen Critchlow) passed away last week.
@Preach Gaming
On the longer global cool down (when compared to Wow):
When I first started playing it felt a bit slow yes. But as soon as you start playing around with a melee DPS class it becomes kind of needed. Melee DPS skills are build around your position towards the enemy. For the most part if you are behind or to its flanks. You actually need to use the global cooldown to re-position before you use the next ability to do max damage.
Bosses gotta be hellla biiig if it takes 2.5 secs to move 90degrees ...
game feels way too slow casters included
@@dorn42 it doesn't once you get OGCD skills, it's one of the problems with the leveling experience, proper rotations don't kick in until level 60/70, there's actually more APM involved than in wow, Just check out any max level rotation.
Honestly it doesn’t really need to be a melee dps. Casters really don’t care that much about the gcd, expecially BLM since the cast times tend to be long enough for the gcd to be mostly a nonissue. Sure there is some 1 second downtimes here and there, but that is what your off gcd abilities are for. Tanks even have off gcds that they can use on occation, not including the normal defensives. Generally once you get to level 50 or so (earlier for some jobs that came out after ARR), the gcd is mostly a non-issue, since you got plenty to think about as it rolls. But yeah starting at level one its pretty painful.
@@dorn42 You can actually move quite little for positionals, as the flanks and the rear are 90 degree cones individually. You can stand on the dividing line of the target cursor for these positions and move to the right side with little movement (assuming tanks aren't doing jerky strafing or moving the boss too much).
The main thing with the long global cooldown aside from leniency to high latency, is due to the way off global cooldown skills work. OGCDs in this game are actually meant to be used inbetween GCDs while the global cooldown is still going, rather than the way it is with, for example, most WoW off globals (that I've seen so far) where you still have to wait for your global cooldown to use them and then they cycle the GCD while having their own internal cooldown after being pressed.
At most you can fit two OGCDs without clipping into your next GCD, as long as it's instant cast and you don't have copious amounts of skillspeed/haste (hello Monk and Ninja). Rather than GCD > wait 1.5 seconds > OGCD > wait 1.5 seconds > GCD, instead it's GCD > OGCD > OGCD > GCD all done in the space of 2.5 seconds.
Machinist as an example has a skill that reduces their global cooldown to 1.5 for 8 seconds, which only allows them to fit in one OGCD between each global (and if you have high ping, you might not even be able to fit any at all which can severely hurt your DPS).
@@dorn42 at end game i think you can get it down to almost 2 seconds.
i love this video so much such a very fair assessment of my favorite game i PROMISE youre in for a treat later on
I am loving your first hours of play through Mike! Very fair assessment of the early game and love the idea of periodic reviews as you journey through the game. Hope you have fun!
"Begging for my character to show some kind of emotion" - Oh buddy, you're really really not ready, you will get your wish
If it makes you feel better, they showed the new map system for Endwalker. it is getting SIGNIFICANT improvements.
I must have missed when they showed that,got a link?
I had not heard that, but I'm very glad to know this now. The maps are so rough to navigate.
ARR makes you appreciate everything that comes later. The story gets so, so good around 50+ and the gameplay just gets better and better. You'll really enjoy everything the later game has to offer, just power through ARR and take in the story.
And the other way too, I just finished 5.5 and after the story the whole game makes me appreciate ARR more too
@@krackawoody2556 I agree, looking back i am so thankful for all the character- and world building in ARR. Although I still wouldn't want to play through it again... the questing is bad.
It finally happened! :) Happy journey Mike! Play it as a single player at first for maximum enjoyment.
HOLY SHIT YOU'RE FLOOR INSPECTOR!?!? I saw you walking around Ul'Dah!!! What a coincidence!
Glad to see you're giving this a shot, Preach! Definitely stick with it until you get access to the skills that are off global cooldown. Not sure how many good ones the Black Mage has since it's one of my lesser played classes, but most classes get loads of buttons that you end up weaving in between casts. As you get into higher levels, they introduce extra gauges, resources, and mechanics to manage that totally change how you play each class. The rotations get a lot more intricate and the decision-making becomes more involved. Some of the melee at lower levels are literally just doing a 2 button combo over and over, but once you get to a higher level, you have like a 30+ button opener.
You also have different jobs open up, like Dancer, which has a ton of procs, and those procs proc other procs. It's kind of like a ranged support version of WoD ret pally where you just have buttons lighting up all over the place.
BLM has basically zero oGCDs lol
Basically what Mike said...
Most of out toolkit as a blm is hard casts or casts that trigger the gcd at best.
Used to have more utility skills off the gcd to weave but now days...atleast we have triple cast?
Still, love my blm.
I honestly think he’d love playing dragoon or red mage
@@barsonik3855 rdm I can definitely suggest. I honestly do for most people who want to try caster, but that unlock requirement can be a hurdle for some.
As too drg, I feel drg starts waaaaaay slower then blm.
But I feel like drg once at like 60ish, maybe early 50s, gets hella fun.
Honestly I feel like alot of the early levels need adjustments to better reflect high levels, since they aren't mostly the same as their level 50 days...especially blm...
BLM is actually the only job with all their spells besides cds on the global cooldown lol
I'm super glad that you're enjoying yourself! Take it at a casual pace. Nobody is rushing you to get to end-game. I recently resubbed to all your channels on account of you telling Blizz to eat a bag of dirt and trying out FFXIV! Kudos to you for doing what's right!
*** Gameplay doesn't pick up in later expansions, but later levels. You need off GCD spells as gap fillers, and FF does that quite well.
Yeah roughly the first half/two-thirds of ARR is honestly pretty damn slow, but it gets so much better
It is tied to the expansions though? Spells above level 50 can not be learned from the ARR NPCs as far as I know
@@farfalleall3 the 50+ abilities I wasn't able to learn until I started HW, though the npc is from ARR.
He’s yet to take on any dungeons, too. I hope he with gods judgment on the first few of those, too! Really the game comes together all around like midway through Heavensward, I’d say, between instances starting to get really impressive and enough of a toolkit to keep things interesting.
@@farfalleall3 it's kind of both. A few spells from 1 to 50 are learned through job quest, the others naturally. Spells from 50 to 60 are learned through job quest. Spells from 62 to 68 are learned naturally. Spell 70 is again learn from the job quest and finally, up to 80 it's learned naturally again.
I've upped some classes exclusively through Palace of the Dead and Heaven on High, and you end up with a weird tool kit, having the spells 62 to 68 but missing the spells from 50 to 60 ^^
Cant wait to see more! Glad Preach is doing ff content now, I'm on ARR atm coming from wow but I enjoy seeing other players having fun with FF. Definitely feels a lot more relaxing than wow.
Dude, I can't wait to see your reaction to raiding! Really curious to see if you'll like it. If you can make it to final coil of Coils of Bahamut, than I believe you will have a clear picture of what awaits you further into the many expansions. It is a gem of a raid and a hell of an experience, on all difficulties. Also, gameplay does pickup with off GCD talents later on. Also, really want to see you do Golden Saucer some day.
If he plays BLM, it's less ogcd and more figuring how to plant your feet and dish out ridiculous amounts of damage.
I believe he did a "guess what this mechanic is" in FF14 before, so he technically has some experience with how hard the high end raiding is.
It was an hour long video of him trying to make sense of everything.
I just started Ff14 2 weeks ago, also coming from Wow, PoE and in my case D3, and this game totally gets better as you progress through the story. There is a lot this game got right and I'm told it gets better in the next expansion. I'm excited to follow this series and see how both your journey and thoughts progress. Cheers my friend
I was pretty confused when you said "Menagerie system", but then I realised you must have meant the Hunting Log! And yes, pretty much all classes start out very slow (I'm speaking of those that start at lvl 1 in particular) and you can feel the GCD on melees more, but it gets a lot busier when you're higher level, plus you start getting gear with Spell/Skill Speed on it (that said, of course not all jobs want Spell/Skill Speed, but that's another topic). In my experience, on some jobs you have so many things (off-GCDs) to fit into that GCD that sometimes you wish it was actually longer xDD But anyway, hope you keep having fun with the game! P.S. Don't get discouraged by ARR dungeons by the way, they're pretty boring, especially the earlier ones.
It was a torture as a rogue but now I wish I am an octopus
Preach, I appreciate you so much. I started this game 3 separate times, but have struggled to enjoy it coming from a WoW point of view. I started again recently and stopped skipping cutscenes and read the text, and honestly, I can’t put it down now. It’s such an endearing game that I’m trying to level all classes equally to make sure I don’t miss anything in story as I go.
Thank you brother for putting your work out there. It inspires people to take a different approach to something they may not have appreciated otherwise.
Best thing about FF in comparison to WoW is that the quests that are like “collect hearts from these creatures” will give you the heart every single time. So you aren’t killing 20 mobs to get 6 hearts.
Thanks for sharing this Preach.
I had played WoW from Vanilla day 1 to January 6th 2021 and was interested to see and hear what you had to say about FF14.
Great insights and many things you mentioned resonated with me.
Cheers and keep up the good work.
One thing: your character DOES stay silent, but various inside jokes and jokes from other characters sometimes makes this better.
And trust me, you probably don’t want voice acting. In fallout 4, it was notorious for having a voice acted protagonist that many people didn’t connect with so they made mods called “Silent Protagonist”
One of those differences you just get used to. I find it amusing these days when the character does the anime headnod.
But I’m glad you’re enjoying and giving it a shot and not going in TOTALLY blind.
Sure it’s a tough sell to have to trudge through a bunch of entry level content to get to the “good stuff” but you’ll learn later looking back the base game isn’t “bad” but that every seed it plants in terms of story and gameplay eventually gets improved so substantially and THATS why everyone says the later stuff is so much better.
But hey, it’s final fantasy. These are NOTORIOUS for being long. Haha.
Welcome! I came in as a WoW refugee a few months ago also and it’s really fun and i look forward to seeing all your thoughts as everything unfolds! :)
I think the problem with FO4 wasn't that your character was voice acted, it's that all their "choices" were basically the same thing but minor tone variation that meant nothing.
It's basically going "yes I'll do it/yeah sure whatever/yeah why not" and pretending they make a difference.
If you took the dialogue options of 3+New Vegas, sure you'd get less inflection than putting your own voice on the character, but they were insanely detailed choices.
That, and 4 had the Mass Effect problem of having a tiny dialogue option that could end up saying something you didn't mean cause they were too lazy to show the full option.
as a long time sub of yours mike, and now a FF14 player (left wow in 7/2020), stoked to hear your thoughts. FF14 is the first and only game, my wife of 21 years, has played with me. She's a console player, me PC, and that we play together, is also another big win for this game. as so many have said, grind through the early rougher parts, and it really opens up. this game is super rich with content. hell, I'm still unlocking new stuff. Great video!
Yeah almost every single one of your gripes with gameplay are entirely addressed by the time you reach the end of the free content (around lvl 60, at the end of Heavensward). All your criticisms are accurate for ARR, 100%, and the fact that those problems still exist in the earliest parts of the game is another topic on it's own, but they really did go out of their to address everything the players had issue with, or in other words Blizzard doesn't run FF14 thankfully lol
How is the absurd hour and a half global cooldown adressed ? this is borderline a crime.
@@filipfenix many people have commented already, but as you level, you start gaining off global abilities and spells to weave in between your globals. In most cases, you'll be double weaving off globals per global during burst windows. We're the global any substantial amount shorter, this wouldn't be possible, and you wouldn't be able to fit as much into your buff windows.
@@filipfenix Youre complaining about a 2.5gcd.... but are coming from a game like WoW where Paladins literally press one button every 8 to 9 seconds in classic..?
Its not a crime, casters dont notice it, and melee have things to do during that time to the point of it being quicker than WoW. You have so many oGCD abillities to weave inbetween you dont notice the GCD.
@@grayfarron5077 did FFA come out in 2004 ?
@@filipfenix FFA?
This is fun watching the start of his epic journey lol.
I love that you named yourself "Floor Inspector".
that would be perfect name for a dragoon
@@yoyoibo Damn I'm on Cactuar too.
I am excited you've started playing 14. You're one of my favorite content creators and ever since I fell out of love with WoW, I still watched your content but not as much as before. 14 is the MMO I' have played the longest and I think your approach to diving in is perfect. Keep up the awesome work! Nice hair!
ARR is severely hampered by the 1.0 Spaghetti code... when they build on it, it's actually fantastic. Heavensward was the first time they got to show what they could themselves, and it really shows I think!
There's no 1.0 code in ARR. It's a completely different engine. ARR's clunkiness is due to the fact that they had to rebuild the whole thing while also maintaining 1.x.
@@bobbytables464 They have made various comments about some things, even now, being hampered by having to build on that old code, since they simply did not have the time to fully rebuild it. I'm sure you can find the interviews on TH-cam from those early days!
When the Pharos Sirus dungeon theme started to play at 5:00 ... I literally got chills. Great video! The gameplay really does improve drastically, it's just unfortunate that they haven't gone back to the early gameplay and improved the pacing... hopefully at some point!
I did every single side quest in the entire game. I love questing, and I enjoy all the little stories that were told during it. Also a nice touch to meet familiar NPC's during holiday events or in the story or what have you who might recognize you. The dialogue changes depending on that. I can see how that would not be for everyone, but it made me smile.
Doing every side quest, which is not required, is an respectable feat you make me feel so lazy lol
@@YaboiBrent07 I'll take it as a compliment, cheers! I wanted to do it, and I had a lot of fun doing it. I met some memorable NPC's and experienced some more and some less meaningful little stories on the sidelines of the big, overarching plot.
Welcome to ffxiv preach! :D Knew youd come sooner or later! Enjoy your stay and enjoy the story. You are in for a ride.
I have to say: it starts slowly until you get to about 30. Garuda in MSQ. From there, it is a very respectable game. As expansions release and funding increased, the story only improves. More off global cooldown abilities really spice up the combat.
I played wow from 2008-21 and started ff14 after CE this tier. Loving the game, just about on the last expansion. Haven't touched wow since. Though it's been a few months, I have not touched endgame but I look forward to it in my own time.
The game is a little dated, it's clear they did their best with what they started with and have built upon it within their limitations. They are certainly investing money back into this game.
Also it's slow story wise because you're basically a nobody at the start, as you start killing primals your name gets around and gaining prominence.
Word FF was epic 5 years ago too. To bad these ex wow players couldn't stop sucking blizzard off. Because of the money they were also making of wow.
If these content creators were all playing FF and then come over to wow they would say the same shit.
@@Quickstepz-OG damn bro here u are helping preaches algorithm. You are doing a lot for "someone who makes money off others work". As YOU so claim. Absolute tool.
It's a little outdated through 4.0 due to having cross play with the PS3. Once support for PS3 dropped and they moved on to PS4 things got better. We will see another jump once enough people get PS5's and support for the PS4 gets dropped.
@@Slow_RollGaming Even though PS5s are rare.
Thanks for giving the game a fair shot! Glad you're enjoying some aspects, and yeah I think most of your gripes will be mitigated as you level and reach more modern parts of the game. I've played all the jobs to max level and I can assure you once your Thaumaturge/Black Mage is leveled higher the combat will not feel slow. I think of all the jobs I found playing that one most stressful, in terms of properly executing my rotation while also dealing with fight mechanics. It's a challenging and rewarding job to learn to play!
Welcome! Excited to see your progression.
Jumping straight into BLM, the leveling isn't going to fee lSUPER good until level 60 really, where your "main" class mechanic really kicks in. It is NOTORIOUS for feeling kinda bleh. That holds true for most classes though, and is absolutely a fair gripe and I think the devs have recognized this.
The story only goes up and up and up from here though. If you are invested now, I'm excited to hear your thoughts once you've caught up.
Once you get the trait that makes F1 give free explosions, it becomes much better imo. Better than a lot of other classes anyways. But yes, once F4 is unlocked, the world opens up to blissful explosions..
Hey, apart of the FF community here! Happy to have you apart of and enjoying the game!
It's fetch quests all the way down, the quest structure never fundamentally changes from teleport here and talk to NPC, possibly kill some enemies and then teleport to the next quest marker.
I know that there probably was already 10 people like me saying this, but as i dont have time atm to read the comments i will just add a thing about Voice Actors. Technicaly they only had around 18 months to create whole Realm Reborn after failiure that was 1.0. So they were really in a rush in all departments and one of the cut costs they had to do was voice acting.
Totally valid complaints for the early game. I felt a lot of the same.
Thing i had to keep in mind is take it with a pinch of salt and consider the fact it's the "PS3 era" ..which is absolutely improved upon in later expansions.
ya, when you compare ARR to classic wow it makes a lot more sense. its designed as a slow tutorial for those new to an MMO and is pretty dated.
@@GloomSkullCandy first hour? not sure about that one. I know Josh Strife Hayes did a video about "it gets good 100 hours in".
If you're going into ANY MMO expecting to love it within an hour you're setting yourself up for failure.
There will usually be a point in the story/gameplay/world/event/whatever that just "clicks" and you start becoming invested but FF is definitely a slow burn (it was for me at least) that didn't really grip me until mid-way through Heavensward.
Coming from a WoW player that started in late TBC all the way up to around 4 months ago when i eventually threw in the towel and said fuck this, you have absolutely nothing to lose by trying.. it's literally free up to level 60.
Preach, it is so nice to see you again. I left WoW 10 yrs. ago and that meant many of my regular "need to watch" WoW creators went on the back burner. Happy to see you doing you and keep it going my man.
JUST WAIT till you get to HW and later expansions! HOLY CRAP it get SO good(Voice acting included)! i went from never playing an MMO in my entire life (aside from some Runescape and WOW in my early years) to FFXIV and im hooked, i literally spend every second of my free time on it. i never once thought id love it this much! And i picked it up rather quickly.
IMO you will enjoy it!
Yeah FFXIV slaps so hard and its kinda funny that they completely changed the voice actors and added a lot more voice acting at the start of HW since they originally had a very small budget for 2.0
@@cas6382 Aymeric turned out to be my favourite character throughout post ARR and heavensward, just because his voiceacting was so much better than anything in ARR. (Also turns out to be an amazing character nonetheless)
@@Fouweior Blake Ritson do be like that. Voice of Alvis in Xenoblade, quite possibly the only man I heard narrate audio dramas and audiobooks simply because I love his voice. (And I'm straight, lol.)
The hunting log was a system they implemented because there were very few ways to level up during ARR and you could run out of quests to do to level up alt classes. Now there are so many ways to level alts that they are hardly needed.
They're only really helpful for 1-15/16 before you can go in duties with them (16 being the second one so the class can do the Leveling Roulette from the start).
Once you can get in dungeons, your EXP speeds up so fast, it's ridiculous.
Morning mike. Thank you for always making good content for us.
Never watched any of your content, even when I played Wow but I have just finished EW in FFXIV so I will deffo be watching this entire playlist.
"Your character just nods mostly" All the characters just nod mostly
*nods*
and they'll even take turns around the group, camera, nod, panning, nod, to each one, look and nod.
Really enjoyed my 1st month in FFXIV. The change of pace from WoW has been awesome. Enjoying healing again. Enjoying instances again.
Man, you're on the money with those closing thoughts. "It makes no sense... But it's fun". Like literally, one job (Blue Mage) is literally an unbalanced mess that learns spells from monsters (literally, you learn abilities from enemies, by getting hit) and you can select a full class's worth of spells from your own collection (over 100 spells can be learned, up to 24 or 28 can be selected as active spells to use). They made it so you can't queue Blue Mage into regular matchmaking from Duty Finder, but only with either pre-made parties (There is also a Party Finder for stuff like this) or solo-ing the content. And let me tell you, it gets cartoonishly weird, but it is so much fun. Pulling a Yoshi-like tongue pull followed by dropping a magical hammer on your enemy and interrupting enemy cats by throwing a fish in their face. It makes no sense. But it is fun!
I like that you wrote "interrupting enemy cats (instead of casts) by throwing a fish in their face"
@@Kenionatus Did he stutter?!
I'm actually glad that you waited a bit to start FFXIV. So many people were starting FFXIV at the same time that I couldn't watch everyone with the same level of dedication.
I was amused about your comments about the player character being emotionless because I've had the opposite reaction. Yes, there's that little solemn nod (which they even make fun of at some point), but your character is also portrayed in cutscenes as puzzled, thoughtful, angry, sad. Much more expressiveness than I've seen in other games.
That happens, but it's VERY rare in the MSQ of 2.0. Much like voice acting it becomes more and more prevalent as it goes on.
Much moreso from Heavensward onward. Honestly, before watching Preach's stream, I'd forgotten just how rough around the edges ARR is, in many ways.
ARR + im not sure how good fem roe emotes are
I think the emotional impact becomes a lot more apparent later on when actions speak louder than words. When a character might thank you for sticking by their side and helping them through a hard time, and you give that soft consoling nod. "that's what friends are for."
It's almost like reading a book now that I think about it. A book is just words without graphics, but you build up a story that your mind understands, and in the end it becomes much more vibrant.
In terms of player character being expressive, you can't top SWTOR, tho.
I do recommend a peek if you are the kind of player that likes that kind of thing.
Im glad you brought up the map issue - it really put off the start of the game and I found myself spending more time planning my route and navigation than actually travelling there!
Just as a warning that I'm sure you've heard before, gameplay takes a while to pick up. In my case it happened at around level 57. Dungeons and normal content are intended to be easy so every player can experience the story.
Hope you enjoy your journey in Eorzea! :)
Welcome to 14, Preach! I hope you enjoy, buddy! Yes, things start off kinda slow but it picks up as you progress. Good luck on your adventure and hope you have a load of fun!
One thing that really makes all the difference, imo, is the crowd sound in places full of people... That "noise" really makes the city feel like a city.
Btw, I really can't wait to see you discovering the Saucer.
And it doesn't just happen in the cities. I was in Outer La Noscea when a level 50 hunt add popped up - someone shouted it out and ten minutes later it sounded like I was standing in Aetherite Plaza in Limsa.
Thanks for giving FFXIV a try! Its definitely my favorite MMO nowadays, even after playing WoW for over 10 years. I'm really excited to see your journey and hear your thoughts as you progress through the early content and beyond!
I’m so glad you are playing 14… even if you end up deciding it’s not for you I’m just glad you gave it a shot. I have enjoyed your content since Pandaria and you were always my favourite WoW creator. Sadly when I quit in BFA I stopped watching the vids because WoW felt like an abusive relationship I finally got out of. I’ll be happily lurking in the streams while you play through the game.
great video btw! i been wait fer the last of yall to come over lol. and i think given some time yer gonna enjoy it more.
A femroe huh? Such refined taste.
Truly a man of culture.
I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what it is about femroes that’s just very attractive, striking almost.
@@YaboiBrent07 I mean, I can think of a couple reasons.
@@YaboiBrent07 big mommy
Accurate and fair. The black mage experience in particular is something I relate to strongly. I wasn't even aware of the GCD until I tried another class, and I believe that helped me get through the early parts of the game without getting frustrated with the gameplay. Looking forward to seeing how your journey goes.
Player expression in ff14 is great. I love wandering through the housing districts.
Nice. I'll be glad to tune in for these videos Mike.
Lol Preach is gonna love when he has to spend like 4 hours of gameplay helping get food for a feast and killing a dragon for a wheel of cheese
To be fair, they actually did remove some of the filler quests in that line. Still a slog, but less of one.
keep at it preach game will hook you in when you get to the first expansion and even more after that :D
I can tell you from experience Preach, how the game flows and plays at the early levels you're at is NOTHING like how the game feels and plays at max level. It's totally an apples vs oranges comparison. Frankly, the first 60 or so levels feel like a tutorial in a lot of ways and it's a pretty slow ramp up. Once you get to 70 and eventually 80, you can tell that the training wheels come off, you have your entire tool-kit, the whole 2.5 second GCD thing becomes totally irrelevant, and you absolutely will see that at higher levels if you stick with the game. Can't stress that enough.
Honestly though, I went into 14 thinking I was going to hate it. I only decided to download it because Asmon and other WoW content creators decided to try it out. WoW is pretty much the only MMO I've known for 15+ years and I thought there was zero chance 14 could live up to that standard. But then a week passed by and I was still playing. Then another week. Then a month.. and yup, still playing the game. Pretty much the same sort of thing that happened with Asmon. Ended up liking the game way more than anyone thought, and the same is true with me. I've been subbed for a little over two months and my /playtime right now is astronomically high for that amount of time. It is the ONLY game I've played these last two months, I've leveled multiple jobs to 80, finished the MSQ, did a lot of extreme trials and some savage raid content, and it's been a blast. The raid design, mechanics, difficulty, has thoroughly impressed me as a former mythic raider in WoW. Impressed me to the point that I pre-ordered Endwalker weeks ago once I first got a taste of the end-game content.
I hope you stick with the game and see it through to 80 with your stream. It'll make for great content. I think if you get to 80 and do some of the high-end content, you're going to totally understand why a lot of people love this game. The story is another topic all-together(I loved it) but I'll leave it at that. Straight up, I haven't felt this excited about playing an MMO since probably WOTLK, and the same goes for how hyped I am to take part in my first expansion launch with Endwalker coming out in a couple months. It's been an unreal experience so far.
Well no, black mage does feel pretty much the exact same at these early levels as it does at max.
Obviously there are minor differences like Fire 4 spam instead of Fire 1 or having an instant that deals non-negative amount of damage when you need to move (Xenoglosy) but, still overall pretty much the exact same.
The funny thing about the mounts being immersion breaking, is that they are all actually cannon in their own way. Almost every mount is something that exists somewhere in the world independently. There are a few cash shop ones that are not but in the descriptions for them they are tied into the world. For instance, the fat cat mount you saw is actually a voidsent possessing a dead cat corpse.
Going through the entire story beginning to end 1-80 for the second time now that my wife started playing. Last time I played through ARR was just about 8 years ago. Dude it is no sweat. It's slow at times, the voice acting is bad but it's a chill time. I think people complaining have never read a book, forgotten how to game, or played too much Fortnite or something. Take your shoes off grab a beer and relax for an hour or two at a time, pay attention and the story is over in no time.
You know whats annoying? Making assumptions out of people, even if you didnt meant it you sound like an ass.
I love this game and all three expansions, but the start is painful.
No i dont play fortnite, yes i read books and i dont know wtf you mean with forgetting how to game.
You enjoy it? Excellent im happy for you but dont try to go invalidating how others feel like there is something wrong with because they dont share your taste.
People have their various reasons for not liking stuff. I know how to read, never touched Fortnite, played a lot of old games, and I still don’t like ARR all that much.
It’s not end of the world terrible. It’s not truly bad. I’ve played through both versions of ARR, before and after the revamp, and I enjoyed myself. But once I hit Heavensward and the quality lived up to the name (forgive the bad joke), I realized that whoa, ARR was actually kinda a messy start. Its pacing is literally all over the place. The VA work is embarrassing for 2012. You had quests clearly meant to pad out playtime until the next patch came out. The storyline did not really come together or have a cohesive whole until 2.4 when we start moving into Pre Heavensward lore building. Before then, we’re fighting disparate primals.
ARR is not bad, but it feels like eating a burger from McDonald’s. It will feed you, and you might really like burgers from McDonald’s! The burger is good. But as FFXIV started to get its own identity and moved away from the panic development era of “If we don’t get this out we’ll go bankrupt” they started making steaks. Higher quality meals, more filling and satisfying. Some people will then look at the burger and go “It’s crap, I hate it,” but the burger is fine. It’s just that we’ve been fed steak now, so we want steak, not burgers.
I fully believe that if the current development team redid ARR from the ground up, knowing what was truly important to keep for story and what needed to be redone or cut, it would be a whole different beast than what we have. They don’t need to do that, of course, and they probably never will - they’re getting plenty of people playing this game even with the clunky ARR experience. But imagine getting a steak form of ARR instead of the McDonald’s burger. I’d be so incredibly happy.
Who said that I liked ARR? I don't. the point is that it takes gamer willpower. I had to realize that if I don't have the willpower to defeat words on the screen and some cutscenes I wouldn't have the willpower to defeat hard content in the game.
@@BioMatic2 please point out the part where I said I enjoyed it. I powered through it twice "no sweat". Who's making assumptions now?
16:09 weird, in Gridania, all the tutorials popped up prior and the quests held my hand in telling me how to do things.
As a wow vet that played mage and moved to black mage. Preach, the class is mediocre at best until fire 4. Then it becomes a real class.
As someone in the same situation, I think pre F4 it's honestly the worst class in the game to level.
Yeah i hope someone told him this because black mage is pretty ass til like 60
@@prisoner817 to be honest most classes are, but I disliked levelling early BLM more than others
Its balance druid playstyle
Can not imagine how bad black mage are but bard was pretty ass too until later
Glad to see you trying out ff preach. I watched you for years in wow and eagerly await watching your journey through ff. Enjoy man have fun
Never realised how useless Mike's window is, literally a window to a brickwall.
Welcome to the UK
Dude you seem to be enjoying the game and you do look really happy :) I might sub up as soon as our working hours normalizes
I've always loved your WoW content. Even though I stopped playing in BFA.
I'm glad you had a great first day and I am looking forward to more content!
By around level 30/40 is when you feel combat start to change.
oGCDs by then make combat much, much more fun.
You end up weaving 2 or 3 OGCDs between the global cooldown all the time.
Actually agree with you entirely on all fronts. Very excited to see you get into the later content, especially when you can start doing the Trials and Extreme Trails, I think you'll really like those.
My only advice for FF14 lvl 60 is generally when classes get good, the gcd stuff is better at that point, if you stay BLM then fire 4 is when it feels good to play, blood of thr DRG for dragoon, your full melee combo for RDM…it’s not the best argument for gameplay, but if you make it thru post ARR slog you are heavily rewarded in gameplay and story
Hi Preach. I love your streaming and your videos a lot, and i feel happiness when i watch your stuff. Keep it up. :D I have played FFXIV since first day because i played FFXI Online back on X360 days.