FFXIV Patch 2.1

FFXIV Patch 2.1 launches tomorrow.  Tonight the game is offline in preparation, and our community (KGC) is preparing to go in and enjoy ourselves.  We were a bit shocked this…

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Talk about WildStar!

A few of you have been asking me why I don't write a lot about WildStar. Honestly, their marketing team does an amazing job ensuring all of the latest information…

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The MMO Horizon

You may have noticed a lack of MMO posts here lately.  Let's fix that!  There's a huge wave of MMOs on the horizon, and I'm looking forward to... well, just…

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FFXIV End-game Update

Keen in Darklight ArmorI’ve been doing the “end-game”, or what is currently available in the end-game of FFXIV, for a couple of weeks now.

The common sentiment is that Square may have rushed things a bit.  To get ready for doing true end-game activities one must run the same two dungeons over and over.  One of those dungeons is a story dungeon, which causes a rift between those who want to speed run and those who want to watch cutscenes.

Grinding CM and AK  (the two dungeons) yields tokens which can be redeemed for gear.  The gear is really only needed to complete part of the Relic Weapon quest, then advance into the only “raid” currently available: Coil of Bahamut.

Right now I’m still in the “taking it slow” phase. I run 2-3 AK’s a day (30 min each) and collect tokens to redeem for gear I’ll need to comfortably slay Titan and Garuda Hardmode.

Can it improve? Yes.  I wrote only a few days ago that a variety of dungeons wouldn’t hurt.  Adding two or three more would be a great start.  Speeding up the Duty Finder would also go a long way.

What I’m not suggesting is enhancing the gear grind.  Some people are recommending a faster vertical climb.  Me?  I think a nice horizontal progression would be much better.  More dungeon options, lots of gear in the same tier, and a long, long time before I have to worry about replacing the gear I just worked hard to earn.

Long story short, it’s not bad.  Having played on a few hours a night, I’m only a couple of weeks away from being able to do the hardest content.  That’s very reasonable.

Update: Patch 2.05 is bringing a great deal of change.  A lot of what has been bugging me and others about the end-game is being addressed.  All the details. (more…)

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Final Fantasy Frustrations

ffxiv gear grindThere’s a lot about FFXIV that I like but as time goes on I seem to discover more and more things that are turning me off of the experience. I figured I’d share some brief thoughts on some of the game elements that are starting to bother me.

Dragoons & Jobs In General

I love the Dragoon job in FF Tactics games and other FF related titles but Dragoons in FFXIV are really disappointing. They may get three jump attacks but they are all on rather large cooldowns. The main damage one, which doesn’t even do that much damage, is around 40 seconds while the stun is around 90 and the AoE is something like 300 seconds. It’s frustrating that you only get to feel like a Dragoon only some of the time and not even to great effect. The stunning jump just seems completely worthless, too. It has a longer cooldown, does less damage, and takes WAY too much time between activation and execution to actually interrupt anything. I was also really disappointed when I learned that there were no breath attacks at all.  I started a Black Mage and I’m having a bit more fun because I feel more like a traditional Black Mage than I ever did a Dragoon.

The job system in general is just really disappointing. Once you actually unlock a job it is little more than a title and quest-line. You are still essentially just your base class except you get a ‘special’ ability every 5 levels. It pretty much makes the addition of more jobs rather unexciting. Like if they added Time Mage or something to Thaum then you are pretty much entirely the same as a Black Mage except you swap out 5 quest-line abilities. I don’t find the idea of that to be appealing at all. They either need to completely re-haul their class system, which they wont, or come up with some kind of advanced job system. (more…)

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