A useful tip: If you accidently skip a dialogue box (or the dialogue goes in one ear, out the other) OPEN THE CHAT and go to the "Event" tab (assuming it's the default settings) and you can see all the spoken dialogue from the NPCs. Saved my bacon a few times.
you can also re-hide the chat box by right clicking any of the tabs then hitting hide **beware though, this click will advance the cutscene by one line** and if you want to hide the cursor in a cutscene, just double tap escape to open and close the skip cutscene box or enable then disable text auto advance (press space bar then the confirm keybind 2x) or just press the confirm keybind (this also advances the conversation 1 line)
Dear Catboy, As someone allergic to MMOs I really appreciate your take on this, Jo. I briefly tried FFXIV with some friends and the social aspect is what appealed to me but _everyone_ I know adores the narrative, at least to some extent. Still don't think the typical MMO combat/pacing/structure is for me but maybe one day I'll have to set aside a couple dozen hours and fall down an explainer rabbit hole. Also thanks for the lil' shoutout haha. Yours, Bee Boy
Even by MMO standards, FF14 starts out INCREDIBLY slow-paced and, in my personal opinion, boring. There are absolutely MMOs with far more interesting combat systems.
Hey, not every game is for everyone, and as much as I'd enjoy the hell out of "A Good Enough Summary" for this game, if it's not your jam, don't jam it! Love your work, Barry, keep rocking it out.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for talking about how boring the actual gameplay is within the MSQ. I felt like I was genuinely being gaslit by the community when I would complain and just flat out be told I was wrong for feeling that way.
Yeah for SURE felt that while going through shadowbringers. It was starting to piss me off lol. Like, I’ve slain gods, felled dragons, liberated countries and weakened an empire and I’m somehow still doing FETCH QUESTS!? I’m an international hero!! So why am I literally delivering SANDWICHES in some small msq quests or aetherite quests? 😂
I've been told how the story gets so much better after ARR. When I finally get there, 60 hours in the game, I discover the new realm and MSQ. Nice. Then I get out of the city after the initial introduction. Literally the first task I get is to speak to some random dudes in watch towers to give the reports back to the quest giver. My mental state broke instantly. I quit and uninstalled the game. I couldnt bear to keep doing those stupid quest one more second, because I was assured after ARR, its all but a sweet cake. Point A point B go back to A. Travel to C, speak to randoms, Go back to A... Who in its right state of mind can tolerate this for dozens and dozens of hours ? A shame. Cause I got invested in the story. But GOD, the gameplay loop and progression is HORRIBLE. And the combat is not engaging one bit. I've been thinking of going back to FFIV. But this experience paired with the fact I have to pay a month of subscription to even try the game again... Its like a MASSIVE warning for me. Anyway, the community is as toxic as it can get with anyone having critics toward the game. Imagine being so positive you become exactly what you despite. There's an utopia gone wrong kind of vibe in FF community.
@@mimmim13aiv Damn, and here I thought I was angry about it as just a scrub. I think the part where he talks about the mindset change is going to be key for me, and probably for you as well. It seems we have no choice but to either not play, play miserably (like idiots) or learn to accept that despite all of the greatness the plot itself thrusts upon you and praise it heaps, you're still always gonna be the world's most beloved part time errand boy/girl too. Like a former postal worker who can't escape his roots even upon somehow making it big as a multimillion dollar CEO somewhere but still insisting to do coffee runs and carry paperwork for his subordinates cause he just can't stop delivering shit and everyone knows it so they keep asking him to.
@@Taima I know this is a bit late but his advice about changing your mindset really helps, doing all this random bullshit does explain how people are so willing to help us halfway through or at the end of the msq, Haurchefant is a great example. Anytime I felt like I was getting bored of the msq, I would switch into doing something else like levelling up other jobs or just doing other side quests.
@@crapcase3985true! I often go and do things like beast tribe, level grinding, even just taking a quick break to eat a snack and watch a video. Or I’ll do roulette and Wonderous tails
I hope you all enjoy this video as it has been a year in the making - not constant work mind you, more on-and-off over the time its been in production, but a long time coming regardless I'm happy to have these thoughts that have been nagging at my mind for so long to finally be out there it's a big loveletter to the game and my own closure to these complex feelings I've had about the game for so long
I really liked this video. I strongly related to a lot of your experience with this game. After trying FFXIV several times over several years, I recently got hooked when I started treating the MSQ as an old school single-player RPG that just happens to have other people playing it too. That might sound kind of dumb, but it has made all the difference for me. Instead of trying to rush through the main quest line and being mostly apathetic about it, now I’m actually engaged and interested. I’m no longer in a hurry to get to “the good part” because, like you said, it’s about the journey. There is some pretty cool stuff along the way, if you’re open to it - and I agree that the Hildebrand quests are definitely some of the best stuff.
"Yes this is a real thing, this is happening now, I like this it just makes me happy." I could hear him blushing at the end and Jo. I have not giggled so hard EVER! You are adorable and I can't Wait to see more content.
This video is the main reason I now enjoy FFXIV. I had much of the same gripes at first but I also now enjoy the game immensely for much of the same reasons. Thank you for making this!
I love the game, and the story, but the main story quests do kinda suck a lot of the time gameplay wise. Especially for me since I personally enjoy crafting gathering more than combat, but all my progress is level locked behind the MSQ. So I have to do it, I enjoy the story, but gameplay wise it's me having to take a break from what I wanna do right now to walk back and forth between NPCs for like 30 min, then maybe fight a mob or two, or do a dungeon. The boss fights I love though, not as a big a fan of the dungeons, but they're not bad either. I just get unlucky and always have to do them when I wanna be doing something else.
@@via_negativa6183 The people that say this are almost certainly in Endwalker or after. The payoff is there, I promise you, but it's not at level 61. It took me post-stormblood to really get hooked. And that's not to say I didnt enjoy my time before, it was just then that I couldnt put the game down - every waking moment was "I want to play xiv." When someone finds that point of enjoyment will vary. Some people actually loved ARR, some it's heavensward, and for some like me it was stormblood. Take your time, don't burn yourself out trying to reach the "good" bits. This game is about the journey, so let yourself enjoy it.
@@via_negativa6183It’s as enjoyable as you let it be. A lot of people play for the story and end game, but if you don’t care about either it ends up not being worth it
I have a friend who started FFXIV a few months ago and he always lets me know when he unlocks a dungeon or trial so that we can run it together as he feels more comfortable when doing group content with someone he knows. One time afterwards he thanked me for always getting on to run stuff with him and I said, "I'm going to let you in on a little secret: veteran FFXIV player *love* watching/listening to new players go through the MSQ because (in my experience) we want to be able to play through the story for the first time again and living vicariously through new players is the closest we can get." He said he felt used XD 6/2022 Update: He just reached Endwalker and got someone to cover his shift at work to play it all day XD
I made my journey through the MSQ so much better by practicing my Voice acting. I would try and give any random NPC voices and it was pretty fun and also helped me pay attention to what was happening.
@@FNigslol he's just having fun with a friend man, literally no harm done, not even a cringey video to stain the internet with. also great voice actors are a key feature of modern gaming and series/movies, so weird thing to take issue with someone doing it for fun you came in out of nowhere and accidentally outed yourself as being insecure, so i hope you get past whatever's bothering you because shittier people could give you a harder time for doing things like this
Jo knows how I feel about FF14. I had many of the same gripes. And since I started playing again this year I wanted to come at it with a better head and with Jo's help, I have been doing a lot better. And I am glad you made this video Jo, as I know you have been working on it for a long time. Thank you for sparking some love for it again.
The "older players love watching newbies go through the story" thing is very, VERY true with me. I've been actively seeking out newbies to watch on Twitch (whether they be the higher profile guys like Preach and Pyromancer and Nobbel or smaller streamers like Giltspire who streams it every Wednesday evening), and reaction videos on UA-cam purely because I've enjoyed seeing other people experience the story. I still enjoy the game and have a BUTTLOAD of things to do (especially since I'm juggling two characters on two DC's) but that has been a fun thing to do on the side while I play.
I quest alone - I recently established as solo-person FC - and when I see another sprouts in area and they're fighting mobs, I'll standby and I'll chip in the fight if they're struggling. Or doing FATE with them even if I have to level-sync down. It's very satisfying, and at the end of that, with customary /bow and what-not.
Too true. Honestly, one of my favorite things to see people react to the first time is The Burn (Savage) in Stormblood. You know the one I'm talking about.
@@KelvinYong77 I do that at times as well simply because of that one person who stayed with me really early in the game when I was leveling the healer since they allowed me to hit the enemy once before one shotting it. It was a boring experience but I was quite happy due to the nice gesture.
Hearing the passion as he's talking about this game's story, and that he had the same type of gripes that I do for the MSQ has actually given me the drive to at the very least watch a story recap video, (the one i've got pulled up is almost 4 hours long so hopefully it's good enough to hook me) if not go back and do NG+. So, thank you Jo, for potentially causing me to sink even *more* hours into this game than I already have lmao
Every time I see a JoCat video it just shows how he truely is the most headpattable (Is that a word? Well now it is) youtuber there is. He is like a cotton candy cloud, wrapped in chocolate. A walking cinamon roll of a character that you want to hug. I need to punch a wall to feel manly again.
Oh, right. I was coming into this game as someone entirely new to MMOs (basically didn't even know what they _were,_ and so certainly didn't have any genre biases going in), and as someone who liked/likes reading and was (and still is) very much into slow buildup-to-payoff arcs and extensive worldbuilding, no wonder I took to it so readily.
I wasn't exactly NEW to MMOs, but it was the first time I'd ever payed for one. My sister-in-law INSISTED I'd love it and, unfortunately, I dragged my heels on joining for a few years. It was only when she went and bought me ARR (and then proceeded to buy HW and StB for me while I was still in my first week of ARR) that I actually played. It was a case of, "...well, I have this game, and a month's sub, so I should probably play it..." and I did. And I loved it. I'm an avid reader and slow build-up/pay-off is INTERESTING to me. I love how everything, EVERYTHING wound up mattering in the end.
I love reading the text so much I check on NPCs that aren't the main quest goal just for more flavor. Sometimes they be like "uh what're you talking to me for?"
My primary form of entertainment is novels and I was skipping 90% of the text and nothing in the game could grasp my attention at all. Almost every character really rubbed me the wrong way. Then one day I was bored and changed the language to Japanese, I wanted to see if there was any nuance being lost in translation. And what do you know, the characters are *completely* different. I'm not sure who is in charge of the localisation but jesus christ they did a bang up job of it. Made near bloody everyone a walking poster for angst, conceit and passive aggressive twatism for seemingly no reason at all. Have not skipped a single line since swapping over, it's a whole different cast with so many little things. There's still a bunch of Japanese tropes I could have done without but at least they are what they are and aren't being painted over with the rooster strutting that was the entire English localisation
I really respect the amount of time and effort that must have gone in to making this video. It's been a long time since I've actually sat through an entire video of this length that talks about games. I'm gonna give it a go mate, fingers crossed! Peace out.
I cannot agree more with the 'paying attention' part. Literally they'll pull out a detail that'll just make you jump out of your seat once you recognize it and it's such a rewarding feeling. This MSQ is definitely worth all the the slow burn for me. Once you have the correct mindset playing it's well worth it. Of course just like Jo said, you can play this game in a multitude of ways, this game stands out so well on it's own with the MSQ or the gameplay alone. Someone show Quinn this video.
do you have any great examples of the story pulling out a detail in such a way that made you jump out of your seat? My problem with the MSQ is that having spent the last 6 months doing very little else (currently at patch 5.4) I can't tell if I've mentally checked out because of burn out or because it stopped hooking me. My excitement peaked at Heavensward and didn't return to HW levels until the 5.0 and 5.3 climaxes.
I've been primed to try this game out thanks to you. Now that I'm actually playing it, I'm having an absolute blast. I think that, having watched the video in the past has massively influenced me to actually enjoy the early game. I'm sitting at level 35 right now and its a lot of fun to just do stuff at my own pace. And yes, I level up every crafting and gathering job that is not fisher while also just doing my dragoon/archer stuff on the side. I've started the game alongside friends. They are not enjoying their time with the story at all, to the point where I'm like: Where have I heard this before? TLDR; forwarded this video to them and I'ma gonna re listen to this as well again now. Thanks for this one chief.
I will say: the bit about "take your time with the msq" is so very important. I have been playing the game for roughly 6 months now, and I'm still in the post-patch content for stormblood. I have often taken week or even month-long breaks from doing any msq content. Enjoy it at your own pace, it will make things so much better. This game is a marathon, not a sprint.
I finished Shadowbringer only a couple weeks after Endwalker released but have ignored the new expansion in favour of lvling professions and checking out old raids. The Ruby Weapon quest (extreme trial series ShB) and onward story must be some of the best I've played in the game so far.
@@k.vn.k Except the entire video is talking about how it took JoCat 300 hours to enjoy FF14. That isn't made right. Hell, if I don't enjoy a game in the first 3 hours, I refund it or stop playing it, because if something can't grab me in the same time it takes me to watch a movie, it's doing something wrong.
Can I just say that I LOVE how heartily you recommended Hildibrand content without giving potential players even the smallest hint about what they're getting in for. I mean that sincerely, I think it's brilliant. I think you can enjoy it TONS knowing what it is, but oh god, going in blind? You are just NOT expecting the game to take that kind of turn. Great video! Even as someone who already loves it, and didn't have the same problems. I'll definitely recommend this video to people trying to get into the game if they have these issues.
I personally haven’t always liked the Hildi quests but it’s been so exciting to watch so many streamers get hooked for good on 14 by doing those quests. They are truly unique and so very very absurd!
Just wanted to send some appreciation your way and especially say I'm happy I found your channel. In particular, I am so grateful that I found this video when I started FFXIV, because your enthusiasm for the game and honest sharing about the rock experience getting into it helped me embrace my time with the early parts. FFXIV's story is bringing me so much joy
The minifilia joke about not being a character was hilarious. Personally, I was totally desensitized to doing time wasting quests, so I had no issue with the slow burn of the MSQ, but I definitely understand whenever one of my friends plays and they complain bitterly about all the parts of the MSQ that waste time.
This just goes to show that, when you recommend the game, you don't have to tell the person anything about the game being good at X amount of hours or when you reach a certain point. All you have to do, is let the person know that the game is STORY heavy, and have REALLY BIG EMPHASIS in story so paying attention to it is crucial. It's an RPG first (JRPG to be exact), MMO second. If its it doesn't tickle their kinks after trying it out, they can put down the game and try other ones as the game won't go away anytime soon. I had a friend who was into FPS and MOBAs and has no care about the lore in the games he played because he's just not interested in it. He never played JRPGs or Western RPGs. He was my room mate, he saw me play this game from hours to end (I have 700+ days total playtime, YES I WAS THIS ADDICTED TO THE GAME) and he was curious as to why I was having so much fun in the game while he doesn't find the same amount of fun anymore in MOBAs and FPS games. He tried the game with me and he was starting to burn out around the post ARR patch that involves the Sahagin before the big fight and the last straw were the Sylphs *(I still remember the questlines that were removed involving these beast tribes because I played them and they are really tedious so I understand why it was removed even though it provides more lore context why we need to do what we need to do or why the thing happened)*. I never pushed him to slog thru and just told him to take it easy, slow or put the game down if he starts getting frustrated. Part of it is him trying to understand why the game is so fun to me, and similar to you, he feels like he is missing out. So he took a 4 month break, went back to the old games he played and then one day he asked me if I can play with him, this time I said, "Ok, if were gonna do this, then let's go all the way. I'll create an alt and I'll start over and catch up to you" To which he replied, "No, I'll delete my character, it didn't have anything special in it anyway and we'll start together." Then I started to tell him to take the game slow, read the main quests because me and the game is not going anywhere. Needless to say, he followed my advise. 2 years later, he is now a Triple Legend (which is something I didn't accomplish since I am not a hardcore raider but an omnicrafter) and fell so in love with the game that he keeps recommending it to some of his friends whenever he is asked of games he would want to recommend and is excited play with them so that he can see their reactions to certain points of the quests. He was even the one that started to convince me to get into Savage Raids because he was having so much fun. Played Endwalker together and he kept messaging me that this game is something he really treasures and thanked my patience to go thru the entire game again with him even though I already have a max level character way back in Heavensward. Also, additional note after getting hooked in this game, whenever he wants to take a break from the game, he tries out any RPG he can find, even the RPGs in the PS1 and SNES era, as he fell down the rabbit hole that is RPGs. He loves Witcher, Legend of Zelda and FFIV (to him it was the best FF game next to FFXIV) because it resonated with him having a brother that felt distant, yet always there when he needed him most. So whenever the topic of him being an RPG nut, from being an FPS and MOBA fiend, I always get the blame. KEKW P.S. English is my second language so I hope I did not misspoke. LUL
The most common question I’ve found myself asking more experienced players during the MSQ is “so when’s the next dungeon?” and I think you explained why that is very well
It’s called immaturity. One day if you’re lucky, you’ll learn to stop and smell the roses. To enjoy a game in full, and appreciate all of the work and care that goes into the minor details in between the larger set pieces. Stay in school
@@austins.2495 Or maybe I've stopped to smell the roses 200 times already and I just want to actually play the game? I get its a story driven MMO and there's 10 years + of content to catch up on. I totally get it. But at the end of the day, I did buy a game. The percentage of gameplay to story is way off to be enjoyable. I can't even play with friends until I hit a dungeon because even though we're sitting in a discord call, everyones quiet focusing on the story until they actually have a quest that requires you to play the game. For every 2 hours of story, there's about 30 minutes of actual gameplay. That's a terrible mix and the reason why a lot of new players burnout.
Playing through ARR again recently I realized the MSQ is like a skeleton of just the basic plot. I found a ton of cool stuff by talking to the optional NPC's in the Waking Sands between quests. Things you wouldn't ever expect like an origin story for Arenvald's silver armor lol. Those have been filling out the story and making it feel much less like a saturday morning cartoon where the primal of the week gets slain by the one person immune to them.
Boy does it. Heck I'm only in the free trial(I started playing for real after the free trial got extended to include all of Heavensward)but I quit and started fresh cause my reason was real life related and a(metaphorical) seed of doubt got planted in my mindset but thanks to my friends I deleted my character in Diablos cause it reminded me of what happened irl and started fresh in Faerie where they all were and I actually felt motivated to play it again and I'm gonna be looking into getting a subscription later on when I'm able.
@@FightOstinFight I admire your persistence, but honestly, if you're just not feeling the story and/or combat, that's totally ok. I love this game with my whole heart, it's my favorite of all time, but I will readily admit that the beginning is rough. I hate when people say, "It gets good once you get to 2.4/2.5, then way better in Heavensward!" Not a good way to sell the game or keep struggling newer players interested. At least you can say that you gave it a shot! Don't make yourself miserable; move on to other games.
I watched this when it first came out and agreed with most of what you said. I started when ARR launched, and skipped a lot of the story, manually, until about lvl 48. By then, I knew something was going on, but wasn't invested enough to care. When I started to sit down and read the words on my screen, I started to really like what I was reading. I had already started crafting, and gathering, so I had other distractions. Now, years later, I am showing my child this game, and my wife and I are trying to help, so I sent her this video, and asked her to watch it. It really helps on the "slog". Thanks JoCat, I love your videos, and your ability to articulate your thoughts is showing in this video.
I was invested since ARR. Helped me through quarantine at thr start of pandemic. Did take a break at lqte heavensward since most of my friends were also taking a break and resumed last year. Ff14 helped me through depression actually and it is one on the top games for me.
This video explains EXACTLY how I feel about the game. I love everything about the game, EXCEPT the MSQ fetch quests. I think I need to try and look at it at a different angle… One of my biggest gripes with games like this (not limited to MMOs) is watching my friends with a whoooole lot more free time than I do learn, grow and accomplish a lot of things. Leads to the friends essentially carrying me through the game and eliminating the challenge to a lot of raids. That said, I think I might just get back into the groove and I have you to thank JoCat. Thank you :3
The fetch quests are a pain and made me really miss the feature in City of Heroes where you could simply call the quest giver to hand in a quest and get a new one without having to traipse back (which wasn't as bad of an experience anyway as you could just fly or super jump or super speed back).
Hey, I just wanna thank you for making this video. A friend linked it to me a couple of months ago now, and it inspired me to gave the game *one more shot*, and take your advice about how to go about playing. I'm super into it now, more than I ever thought I would be! I'm having the best time, this game has now permanently altered my brain chemistry. THANK YOU!
I have really been considering getting into this game lately, actually after I watched a supercut vod you uploaded. This has pushed me more into the mood of getting it, thank you. Now I just need some people to play with.
I play this game p much loner and I can tell you that you don't need friends for this game. I bet it makes it better for some peeps but it's not needed to enjoy the game. I've managed to even get the HW extreme mounts aka the firebird mount p much without adding anyone to my friendslist
If you are someone like me who almost exclusively played single player games, you can progress through the game just fine by yourself. You can even do what I did and find a (safe) streamer fc and use them as a resource for progressing though the game (fc buffs are amazing, and even basic food will give you a 3% xp buff)
I went into it as a loner. I experienced the main story quests alone. And I really liked it that way. But one day I was invited into a random free company (guild), and for some reason decided to accept even though social gaming wasn't for me. Now it's been a few years, we've had our highs and lows, and we still play together, not only Final Fantasy, but pretty much anything we feel like trying out. I'm now part of a decently sized community that feels like a family, even though I went into FFXIV with the sole intention of playing an MMORPG by myself. So don't wait for people to play with. Go out there, get a feeling for the game, and if you enjoy it, maybe find a small community of your own. =)
Same Secret world was a Game I wanted to Love. I bought the original day 1 way back when it first came out cause the concept sounded awesome. But the gameplay was so bad, I couldn't get past Area 2 cause even with all the 'Top Gear' I could get from the raid, bosses, and quests, the enemies were just too powerful and took too long to beat. And Area 3, was the same. Never made it to Area 4, ever, in all my years of player. And by 'Area', I do mean 'AREA', not as in, the 4th arch or 4th chapter, I mean in the very beginning area at the start of the game, going to the 'Exist' to the next zone on the same island. I only ever made it to Zone 4 Max, out of playing the game on and off over the years. Which is sad, cause I WANT to experience the game and the Lore and quests. But holy shit the Combat and 'MMO Mechanics' is too fucking hard to enjoy. It's like trying to Solo a Raid in Wow, but it's just the the basic 'normal map' and not even the raid yet.
That's actually a really great comparison (and sad that it's so apt, too). The Secret World had SUCH a great story, but even reincarnated as Secret World Legends, you had to fight against the MMO mechanics to get to the juicy story nuggets. And sometimes, that fight was just too much. 🙁 I hope you have better fortunes in FFXIV!
At the end there and with my... Sort of passing into "veterancy"... I can 100% agree with the "Veterans love watching new players experience the story" because all the reactions of friends who've started playing are priceless through all the ups and downs of the story in the game. And, well, listening to their reaction when they find the Hildibrand questline is just flawless every time.
31:58 i feel like that's actually one of the biggest issues in the game that you touched upon earlier. So much of the game is effectively single player other than dungeons and trials. I really wish more of the game was co-op, such as being able to go into instanced story battles together, duty support dungeons together so you can take your time to read lore stuff, being able to team up to finish quests together. Etc etc. Like you said a lot of it will be your friend having to do the quests alone while you wait on the sideline until they reach the next dungeon or trial, then rinse and repeat. I know it's a old video but I thought to give it a watch because my partner quit on one of those post ARR errand quests where Minfilia mentions that they are wasting your time with errands in the text box. Made them think "I really am wasting my time aren't I?" And quit. Trying to get them to get back for the free login event and got the reply "Nice try squenix, you can't trick me into wasting more time on pointless errand quests tho" which really sucks.
I feel like a weird outlier for the fact that I was almost immediately invested in the story and the lore of the world right from the get-go in ARR, which started with my character actually FEELING like a character in the story instead of just an empty avatar and having a race that appealed to me on a spiritual level (Au Ra) helped with that further. I wanted to know more about mysterious folk like Hydaelyn and the Ascians and about locales that were mentioned off-hand like Ala Mhigo, Othard and Thavnair and it was just little teases like that kept me motivated to keep pushing forward. I'd constantly speculate about what was coming next in the story, and more often then not there were enough clues strewn about that I was able to make fairly accurate guesses, even for some of the more...outlandish twists like those introduced in ShB and EW. I agree that most of the actual quests in the MSQ are pretty dull gameplaywise, but the little bits of world building scattered about even in the random sidequests managed to hold my attention all the way through.
aye, I always enjoyed the low level, humbling experience of classic wow and so ARR hooked me from the jump (although I totally agree with Jo way more of its MSQ should be moved into side quests)
Yeah, I think the persistent comments of "getting to the good parts" was a bit of a flag. I get that it's like being told you have to finish reading this book to get a prize but the book itself is what most people love. Missing the forest for the trees big time.
@@5chneemensch138 The DRK job quest line is for you then. It's definitely there for those who don't match the intended "Goku" like character which the story is mostly written for; those who simply strive for adventure for adventures' sake. The expanded dialog options given in later expansions also helps give some breathing room as well.
@@DrunkCat1337 Dialog options? Do you mean as in option options like a CRPG or as in "yes, but actually no" like in Persona 5? A non-reactive character that just stands there like a corpse like in almost all calssic MMOs is way more of a character than a character that reacts outside of your control and is mute. Code Vein gave me an aneurism for that exact reason. I _really_ want to like FF14, but the game actively tries to push me away from it at every opportunity. Last time I logged on I was close to Heavensward, at lvl 58, Ninja.
This is literally exactly what happened to me. Started out loving the crafting and other progression, but started getting really bogged down trying to get through MSQ to unlock things. Near the end of ARR I just kinda gave up and stopped playing. Halfway through watching this video I started the game up again and I'm gonna try to follow the advice here... hopefully it works, because I really think I could love this game and its community if I could just get into the groove. So ... I think I gotta go practice my imperial salute or something? Wish me luck.
As someone who has tried to play ffxiv since it first came out on PS3 , December just gone me and a mate said "screw it we will commit till we enjoy it". ARR does suck but it sets up so much, just finishing heavensward it's not a game changer but all the other things you can do outside the msq while making your way through it is a blast. By time I got my character to level 50 , which I had done while I still had like 30 quests left in ARR I was hooked. Give it time, really commit if you can and you'll eventually see why it's so recommended
Totally with you. The MSQ made me quit. I simply couldn't bear being forced to watch Mary Sues talk to each other while *my* character nodded and nodded and nodded and agreed to do stuff I didn't want to do.
@@zomgl2pnoobffs Hearing the word Mary Sue used to describe characters in FF14 makes me want to punch you, but I understand you are still in the ignorance of ARR, so I shall refrain.
I started this journey in April with encouragement of a friend. Last night we just finished the 5.3 patch and to say there was tears and every other emotion is an understatement. I have fallen in love with this game. Plus your crap guides are some of the funniest xiv content on the UA-cam. Thank you for sharing your story.
36:55 I feel like this is one of the most important things, taking your time with the MSQ. It's designed to be a slow burn, and it's worth keeping in mind that all this content has been released over the span of a decade. Sometimes the MSQ's momentum is high, sometimes it's low, and that's a very deliberate thing. Don't binge for sake of getting to something later, play at whatever pace feels natural, taking things at the pace that feels right in the moment. There's no shortage of non-MSQ things to do when the momentum of MSQ is at a low point, and in many ways the game actually expects you to take these breaks from the MSQ, as part of how it loosely establishes gaps in time in an immersive fashion.
Thats the important take away. At the same time there's so much motivation from the playerbase, and the game itself that incentivises progressing to "the better parts of the game", meaningful story pay offs, and in game rewards.
Msq is a huge, obligatory waste of time and I absolutely despise it. The curse of playing the game now that everything's out is that you either have to play for 2 years to unlock all the content gated behind msq or straight out pay for it. The only way I'd be ok with it is if I can "trigger" the dialogue and go about my business as an addon reads it to me & cutscenes playing in the corner of my screen. It is not a slow burn, it is a video of a fireplace playing on loop.
@@aliceblack3533 i think thats sort of a you problem? Because thats how the game is? Theres a very heavy emphasis on story in ffxiv. And if it isnt drawin ya in then i suggest hoping ship to another mmo. Cos this game really just aint for you if you really dont like the msqs and i say this in the nicest way possible. Because the reason it burns so slow is because you cant just expect your character to be legendary warrior of light right of the bat.
@@aliceblack3533 it’s a video of a fireplace where people talk about stuff and your “character” nods occasionally and then runs off to do whatever it is that they said to do.
My main annoyance was that people with linkpearls still needed you to go to them and talk to them in person only to send you away again. Or instead of using their linkpearl to talk to another person with a linkpearl they send you...
They explain that, linkpearls can be intercepted, so the important secret stuff need to be said in person. Heck, your linkpearl is hacked during Praetorium so that red power ranger can have a discussion with his former crush! That's why they use the linkpearl mostly to tell you to go to HQ so that they can relay to you information.
@@NibelungJ Still feels like a retroactive justfication for a real problem with their game design. Like not putting a teleporter crystal in Vesper Bay.
@@Healermain15 It's not retroactive, as I said, your linkpearl DO get hacked at some point in the 2.0 MSQ, justifying the need of communicate sensitive things in person.
This is still one of my all time favourite FFXIV videos to revisit every couple of months just to go through the butterflies of finding and falling for this game all over again
I was in a similar seat, thought I was lucky enough to have friends pushing me about. But I remember the exact moment I fell in love, I was gonna do the Shiva trial for the first time ever and thought the music was very pretty... Then everyone got frozen and it got all quiet, the finger snap happened and suddenly the punk rock ballad starts playing and I get goose bumps all over my skin. That was when I truly realised why my friends love this game so much. I'm not suprised that it was a song that finally really got me into the game, whenever I get interested in something it's usually related to some music I heard from said thing.
This is art. I've been searching for a game to suck up my free time *and depression* and this convinced me to try FF14. This is a great primer for what the game is about and how it's not wrong to dislike parts.
FF14 healed or relieved a lot of people's depression. Just try to read as much as you can. There is not much fun combat in the first 60 levels. But the story, and Gold Saucer can eat up all your personal time lol.
Really awesone video :) As someone from 1.0, it's actually amazing how big and beloved this game become. It's really a blast seeing ppl enjoy it for the first time. Let's all have a blast
Conversely, I fell in love with FF14 almost instantly, and feel immense disappointment in the fact I can't afford a subscription. But maybe there's something in this video that can help me enjoy FF14 even more than I already do, so we'll see what I think after I watch the video. Edit: I might play FF14 again, despite not being able to progress anymore.
This is absolutely an excuse to try out more of what the game has to offer, even in the free trial. I have some friends who embarked on the craft/gather everything themselves route, who we brought along to do the high end trials/raids of ARR with, heck even one who became a collect-aholic when he realized his old obsession: FF8's card game Triple Triad, was basically all here too. Caveat being that it helps to have some friends one linkshell call away, but there's still plenty of other optional non-MSQ content to mess around with.
Thanks Jocat. A few of my friends recently got REALLY invested into FFXIV so I decided to join them, but ultimately ran into the same issues as you with ARR. I made it about halfway through trudging through the MSQ until I ultimately lost steam and gave up trying to get to the "good part" after about 30 hours of playtime while the rest of them got through Heavensward and are now well on their way through Shadowbringers. After watching this, hopefully I can give this game another chance with a new mindset, and not skip through all the dialogue this time. Wish me and my tiny conjurer "The Chris" luck! [EDIT 2023]: I got through Ifrit and gave the game another break, but by now I realized I don't really like the gameplay of being a White Mage. So I'm now having a way easier and more fun time as my tiny Summoner "The Chris"
I'm a reader by nature and I devoured every last bit of XIV's story and even the quests. Yes, even the subquests. Some of those tell very interesting little stories or add just a bit more character to the zone or give a bit of trivia that you would have never known otherwise. To have it ALL come back and be important in Endwalker was just mindblowing.
I am like this too. I talk to npcs when they are gathered, even if they didn't have a quest to give, I would legit want to know more about the world and its people, and I always appreaciated what they shared, speciallly my fav npcs.
I didn't have any of these problems you had, but I can apprehend them well enough. As a 90 omnicrafter/gatherer and someone who's currently working on getting all my combat, I feel the technical faubles of this game -- but you know what? The bits of great story I get by persevering are totally worth dealing with those. I'm going to second that Hildibrand recommendation, with much gladness. Just be sure to bring your sense of humor so that you can enjoy both the excellent writing and the fantastic animations. Can't tell you how many times I've burst out in laughter at some of the turns of phrase, twists of story, and especially the ways in which scenes are animated. On a side note -- read item descriptions the first time you get them. A lot of them are pretty straightforward, but quest items and especially _fish_ usually have fun text hiding in the descriptions. I've laughed quite a lot at those, too. They didn't have to go so hard to make descriptions interesting or funny, but they did, and I love it for that. Finally... when you are on your Minions page, you can hover over the illustration of a selected minion in the lower-right to get some flavor text. There's a bunch of funny stuff in both minion item text and in the flavor text.
That ending made me smile so much 💖 that blushing fun is exactly how I felt when I used my free fantasia to change from hyur to fem-roe. Love that you embrace it you wonderful cat-boy! And I'm so glad you loved the Hildebrand quests. They seem to be very love/hate but I enjoyed them very much too.
Some people are so focused on the “MMO” part that they forget the “RPG” part of the full genra name. Nothing wrong with that, but it is something to consiter.
I was trying out the game and skipping through all dialogues and cutscenes because I saw them as a waste of time, and as a creator that I value the opinnion of, I remembered you had a video on this topic, watched it entirely, and now I'm having way more fun with the game. Thanks catman ^^
I just got to the gator family. And when i read that my cmpanions where equaly annoyd as me i really had to chuckel thinking about the laundry that would await. I was actually kinda worried you werent joking that much. Turned out to be a rather nice quest actually.
another thing they do sometimes that I really like, is a questgiver will give you a list of like, 3 chores that they want you to do, but then the characters with you will actually split up and do two of them so you only have to do one.
I really appreciate what Jocat said starting at 14:04. I am one of those people who thought the story was great all the way through, But I have gotten hostility online when I say that I like ARR. It's fine to not like ARR, but don't get angry at people who do 20:11 Exactly right. I started out ARR role playing my character. This might actually explain why I loved ARR so much I wasn't there to get through the story ASAP. I was there to be my character
Yeah I'm not past Heavensward yet and I'll admit the writing is much tighter but like...ARR had so much to establish? It drags a bit at points, but they spend a lot of time establishing the world, the stakes, and the characters. I really do like ARR and its a shame people consider so awful, it just had a different job to do is all.
I started FFXIV because of this video, and having just completed ARR I can see a lot of the points made. Yes parts of it are rough, but you weren’t kidding about the story being worth it in the end. Thanks for making this video!
I'm glad you really tried to stick it out multiple times to enjoy the game rather than just give up after the first attempt when you didn't like it. You kept at it and tried different angles and now you even love it. Makes me smile when I see someone give a game that many chances and have it finally click. :)
Let's be real, ARR is the resilience check of a FFXIV player, if you get past it, you get past anything. Also Jo, yes, your voice is amazing to listen to. Your self is so quiet and warm and level headed for this video, talking about a topic that touches a lot of people. You make your opinion very heart warming, and you just are such a man. Also the conclusion and ending.
I want to thank you for this - your story mirrors mine, and I was so frustrated when FFXIV players tried to tell me that the story was great and I should appreciate it more; the quests and MSQ were great and I should appreciate them more, etc. But I detested them and it's not because I dislike lore or story. I don't dislike those things at all. I just dislike the way FFXIV handles them. Your perspective helped me reconsider my response to the game, and I am thinking I may give it another try eventually. I'm not ready to do that yet - my experience with the game left a bad taste in my mouth, and I am finding Guild Wars 2 so much more enjoyable. But! My mind has opened to FFXIV in new ways, and I might just be able to appreciate it someday.
You've nailed everything I felt throughout this entire video for me, now I'm hoping the latter half of your experience is true too :) Definitely gonna give FFXIV another shot now especially now that my friends are also sucked into it Oh and amazing redesign. Perfection.
For me I was skipping most dialogue and cutscenes until I got to Coerthas around lvl 35-40 IIRC. One of the characters mentioned a dragon sex cult and I was like... wait... I should pay attention now. That story about the heretics and the Inquisition hooked me good. I still hated most of the post 2.0 patch quests, but I diligently read through them all anyway, and when it came time for Heavensward, my understanding of the characters and the stakes made everything that much better. I agree that the quests themselves still aren't great, but the characters and the payoffs make it all worthwhile. Oh and the Extreme trials are a ton of fun and made me realize that progression raiding with randoms was a thing in this MMO, unlike some others.
To anyone who finds this video and still needs re-assurance. I joined at the start of Shadowbringers to play with some friends. They were levelled so I bought a level/story skip to catch up to them. I played with them for about a month or so before they started to fade out a bit. In that time, I took to levelling other jobs via deep dungeons. I never touched crafting, never looked into Grand Companies, never did the Beast Tribes, and I never payed attention to quest content. I just wanted to experience the classes and what they could do. Needless to say, my friends eventually stopped playing and I let my subscription lapse. When Endwalker dropped, I wanted to get back into things. I reached out to my friends to see if they were going to play, and they were not. So I didn't come back then. It took me watching JoCat's videos of him explaining the roles in a very funny and poor manor that inspired me to get back into things. This time around however, I wanted to experience the game fully. I had always had other players telling me about the games story doting on how good and well written it was. So, when I came back after my hiatus I decided to make a new character. Completely fresh. I can honestly say, I wish I would have done this a lot sooner. The game's MSQ plays like you are reading a book. I tend to treat it just as and bite through it in what I call chapters (fancy name for me taking breaks). But it is well worth it. I won't spoil to much for ARR but I had always thought things played out a certain way with certain characters and I was sorely mistaken. The crafting is so addicting. I, admittedly, have a love hate relationship with it. I gripe and groan when I have to go gather things but took so much satisfaction in watching how each DoH job intertwines with one another. Even so, when you get to a certain point, it starts really paying off. Pun intended. The Beast Tribes are, well, both cute and annoying at times. The quests are kind of meh, but seeing what they unlock for you is well worth grinding them out. Getting through ARR though, Sylphs for life. Grand Companies were a challenge for me in the start, I hated running all across Eorzea to kill things that I had found in a book just to rank up. However, I am glad I did. Grand Companies come in clutch for so many things down the road. And although some of the features may be somewhat pointless now days, it was still a lot of fun. All in all, the game has enthralled me like Garuda's big ol....well, you get the point. Extremely glad I decided to do my own thing and just enjoy the game. I joined an FC, have made some friends, ran some raids, and I am still progressing through the story. I plan on continuing this and sticking around for however long I can. P.S. All of the characters in the game have their own personality and I love them all equally save for one I place higher above all others. I would cleave mountains in two for Ms. Tataru. That adorable little potato.
I appreciate this so much! I'm someone who tried free week trials and have a partner long with plenty of friends trying to get me to play. It never quite hit but this gives me a new perspective.
37:49- My brother-in-law had me skip the cutscene before the vault dungeon in heavensward, and I would say whole-heartedly I missed out on something extremely important.
You can actually see the great potential of Ishikawa's writing from the Rogue Guild's quest. It just feels so different, stylish and fresh compared to other ARR stuffs.
glad you found a way to get into it. For me, I was hooked from the very beginning. It's like the game was made for me. Completely immersed and filled with joy from the instant I got off the boat in Limsa. I still can't completely empathize with people who find ARR to be a slog, but I try to respect it and come up with ideas of how they can enjoy the game anyway. story skipping just ARR then watching all the cutscenes might be the answer- though there's a thousand little things in ARR I'd never want to miss- like Hildibrand or the Postmoogle quests.
My close friend playing the game was so conditioned by other MMOs (WoW, GW2, the ARR grind) to expect nothing of value from the story or writing that they skipped several arcs worth of Hildibrand cutscenes without really knowing what was going on. If they start playing again, we'll be sure to right this wrong.
I feel like I actually would defend the "run in a straight line from one part of said spoiler area and back again a few times over a course of an hour or so" simply because if it were just cutscenes back to back to back, it would be overwhelming. Like, the downtime in moments like that lets you process or think/talk about what's going on so it doesn't just turn into channel surfing at 4 a.m. without really paying attention.
Theres gotta be a better solution than making the the travel extra boring, so the cut scenes feel comparatively less boring. It's like adding dirt to your porrige in hopes it will make the oats taste sweeter.
@@kodaxmax I'm not saying that it makes the cutscenes "less boring" I'm saying it's the difference between speed eating and having a normal meal. The space between gives things a moment to breathe.
@@writer747 Don't worry the cutscenes with any sort of weight to them already space themselves out with hours of meaningless drivel (whoops I meant setup). The msq is a visual novel, having to teleport/auto-run/watch a progression bar/kill 5 piss easy mobs in between adds nothing.
I’ve recently started playing FF14, and managed to get through all of ARR in a about a week and half because I was pretty sick and couldn’t do much else. Most of what you’re saying holds true, but I’d like to add my own point on the story’s writing: Many quests, characters, and interactions are really not written well in ARR imho BUT, it’s the pay off that you mention that makes most of them worth it (really, Alphinaud and Menfillia are like cardboard cutouts of themselves). I have also found that the story is at its best in hindsight, when you have the information and it does make sense - and this is true not just for the MSQ but for a lot of quests that I would otherwise write off as uninteresting or tedious. I think it’s also worth mentioning that, because the story takes its time it’s also able to tackle topics in a nuanced way. Most of the times when the story touches on a moral dilemma or issue it won’t take a single stance and say “this is the way” - it will actually explore it from different perspectives and let the player come to their own conclusions on what’s right and wrong here (even if you don’t dont have agency over what you eventually do). This is something I massively appreciate, coming from other MMOs where the story wasn’t allowed to take its time in the same way. I’m only 170h in right now, and I’m far from losing my sprout badge, but the game has definitely hooked me. Especially the glam and gpose part of it.
I think I'm odd. I loved FFXIV's questline. I loved the story, EVEN ARR. Maybe it's cause I was and am a book nerd, so the book-like feel of the slow burn story really resonated with me. . . . I also am someone who likes LotR book version and even own the collectors edition, so my tolerance for 'standing around talking' is pretty damn high. But I'm still at a point where I wish I could like this game more, and its all because of my friends, especially my boyfriend. They rushed me. A lot. I barely remember Stormblood because I blitz though it then quit the game. I came back for Shadowbringers and Endwalker--and those are my favorite expansions hands down--but the rush was just. My boyfriend wanted to raid, and wanted all his friends to raid. End content, first month release. So every time I wanted go off an do a side quest, I'd be told to do MSQ. Want to do crafting, do MSQ. Want to try the minigames, do MSQ. It. . . killed the game for me, for a story rushed is no story at all--and I love all the side content. I don't like combat, and grinding, and raiding--I'd rather spend 50 hours in the Gold Saucer racing chocobos. I guess I'm somewhat venting, but people, don't let anyone rush you through this game. Go at your pace, deviate as you want, and it'll be a LOT better.
What a horrible experience you got. For me, i keep deviating from the MSQ because of the side contents like crafting, obtaining relic weapons, leveling other jobs, side stories. My god, playing on a character then experiencing all the jobs is an amazing treat for me.
this is what killed it for me as well but in a different way, didn't have as much time as my friends and i wanted to be doing content with them so i kind of forced myself to rush to keep up, and i burned myself out as a result cause i realized at one point no matter how hard i tried i just could not keep up.
Phoenix, Cyber, I know it's not something that is usually recommended for FFXIV (in fact, many, MANY people say not to, but I COMPLETELY disagree with them), but I'd honestly advise an alt in a different world than the people that rushed you. Come up with a backstory that relates to the world. Keep that backstory in mind as you create your alt. Once you're in, actively go look for an FC in that world (there are usually plenty advertising), join their discord if they have one. Don't rush to catch up with your new FC mates as, more likely than not, they'll want you to take your time and would be more than happy to help you out with content and just hang out while you do stuff. Take your time. Play the game following the personality of your alt WoL. I love my main, but when I get bored playing on him (he's got nothing to do but levelling and roulettes right now, lol), I jump to one of my MANY alts with their various backgrounds and different personalities and just... play one of them. My main is a laid-back dude who was born in Doma but fled for Eorzea with his pregnant mother and two bodyguards when he was a child. I also have a quiet, yet sassy cat girl, my main's Super Serious baby brother (who was born in Eorzea), a super shy healer Au Ra healer who's emotionally fragile (and THAT'S super fun to imagine the backlash for when the person she has a HUGE crush on gets nuked saving her butt, and I even have personal story beats for that, such as a MASSIVE shift in focus on party roles), a mischievous Viera girl with self-esteem issues, and quite a few others, just because I enjoy imagining the story from the perspective of different personalities and races. Point I'm making is, if your experience on your main has been ruined, start fresh. Still play your main, still hang out with your friends, but have a side character somewhere away from the people that damaged your original experience and make it all new. Play how you want, when you want. Enjoy the main story, side stories, mini-games and the rest of the content at your leisure with no rush. Maybe just sit in the city-state with the most active social life (for me, who mostly lives on Coeurl over in Crystal DC, that's Limsa Lominsa with Gridania as a secondary location) and just... talk to other players. Listen to a bard for a while and chill. No limits, no rules, as long as you aren't a jerk to other players (though if it's the personality of your character, feel free to be a jerk to NPCs. lol). :) Hell, there are other ways to spice up your playing, too. For example, if you have a healer (or Red Mage with Verraise), write up a raise macro message to display your character's personality. For instance, one of my main's macros is, "No dirt naps on my watch! Up you get, (player name)!" You can also write macros that alter the message your emotes put in chat. I don't know how to do that myself, but I've seen it done and I think it's a cute way to add personality to your personal WoL. And oh, hell, I just realized how long this message has gotten. I think FFXIV's wordiness has affected me. lmao
23:36 THIS. This makes me think about how EW [spoiler] . . . . . . . . . . brought up the 7th Umbral Calamity and how it wiped people’s memories, and how big a point it is for EW’s narrative. People will mostly forget that this is mention at the very beginning of ARR when we first arrived at the major cities.
@@25cats oh sorry about that. Will add after the cmt. Since the EW spoiler gate is lifted I wasn’t thinking to add warning. 7th Umbral Calamity wiping memories is mentioned in ARR so I don’t see this part is spoiler…At least you still have to discover how that point is related to EW at least? 😅 I don’t think anyone can guess without the context provided by EW anyway.
@@SoSakashii oh nvm, im totally on the wrong side here. My brain immediately activated the spoiler sensors for some reason and i misread everything. Sorry about that!!
That was a very interesting and enjoyable watch! While I didn't experience a lot of stuff you went over about the MSQ, I did feel some burn out with it at points despite how much I was enjoying the story, its definitely not something you can binge easily even if you do enjoy it a lot. I have found myself struggling to get into the game though but for a completely different reason that I hope I can find a solution to soon, especially since I do love the game very much and see how good it can get, its just getting past this problem that is proving to be tough. Which that problem is not being able to confidently do anything in the game. Whether its just daily roulettes, trying to learn extremes or savage fights, finding a static, or just talking to people, I always find myself very hesitant or scared to do it, no matter how much I do want to do it. And its only really with FF that I have been experiencing this, I used to play WoW before FF, and while I experienced this problem a bit there, it was never this bad. I know FF's community is very forgiving to people, especially people new to a situation, but I still find myself extremely hesitant to do stuff, I have to push myself to even just do daily roulettes. I know no one will probably never see this, but if by any chance someone does and has experienced this same problem or something similar and has found a solution to it or you think you might know a solution, I'd greatly appreciate any insight anyone might have.
It's taken me a while to get around to watching this video but I'm glad I finally did. Definitely one of your best videos you've made and I'm looking forward to content like this in the future. (Although, I guess a video about hundreds of hours of play might be just a bit hard to make a few of)
I feel like the odd one out cause I immediately loved the story and world building. By the end of ARR I did feel burned out ngl but the lore kept me going. I think it’s cause I love writing and making my own characters so I love experiencing world building and character development.
As someone who had no idea how to do things for any sort of MMO before trying this game, learning things has been challenging but fun. Watching this reaffirms the fun I’ve been having playing the game thus far, so thank you for that, JoCat! I may only be barely level 30, but I’m really excited for what more the game has to offer.
The roleplaying part at the end of part 2 makes me feel, to synthesize it, that most stories, especially MMO stories, tell you why this or that NPC matter. XIV builds up over the course of many irrelevant moments and characters why -you- matter
JoCat I want to thank you for giving my wife and I the encouragement to push through and give this game a second chance and we both are absolutely hooked. Still on the free trial, but we're gonna try to do everything we can in it before committing money to it
I'm sending this video to every FFXIV friend I have, old, or new, as well as anyone who has ever expressed interest that hasn't jumped in yet. This is the most honest expression of finding joy in this game I could imagine. This is almost verbatim how I've tried to articulate how I came to love the game to people, but in a far more digestible format than my in-person gesticulations.
After watching this it made me realize something important: when I try and play this game like I played WoW I wasn't having fun, but when I let go of those biases and expectations and just let myself be immersed in this world is when I've truly been enjoying it. I'm still not even fully through ARR yet but there's been so much of the story that when I gave it the chance has just been magical, so going forward I'm gonna try to keep that open mindset and just let myself be a part of this honestly incredible world. Thank you for all your content, and for opening my eyes to what I was frankly being too stubborn to realize.
I came here from wow and the games have to be approached differently. Ff14 has been a great journey for me and ive enjoyed exploring a new game a lot, but wow is all about skip the journey and justget to the destination
This video almost makes me cry, hearing how much you enjoy the game, since I'm in the same place, of loving it like crazy. And yes, the chocobo sniffing quest was very important, just for the WAY later dialogue choice "as transcendent as smelling a chocobo"
To show how everyone is different, the quest you speedup around 16:45 was one of my favorite of the expansion because of the fact it let me look back at everything that happened before, the ambience etc.
god damn you jocat your suggestive and debatable style is pretty good, I am usually not even interested in long format videos but I literally just listened. Good job on the video i know its old but i played ff14 first time ever like 2 days ago.
Oh my god, this is the first time I've ever heard any content creator acknowledge Fiesta Online's existence. That was the game that helped 14 year old me learn that pretending to be a girl online, even if it's just because my lack of interest in cars and sports made me insecure about my masculinity, was still lying, and that the relationships built upon that lie, even if they flourished because I was still, mostly, being myself, could still come crumbling down at lot easier than if I were just straight with people about who I am and what I'm about from the get-go. It also made my mom think I was gender dysphoric, which I still sometimes have to remind her I am not.
when I played this game the first time, I was on free trial and playing entirely alone at the recommendation of some friends. I couldn't get my head in it at all. I had never played an MMO before (and FFXIV is still the only one I've played), and my patience was worn thin VERY fast. I dropped the game at level 30 without even picking up my job stone. 2 months ago, I picked the game up again with a friend of mine who was starting with me. it changed my experience so much. being able to talk on vc about the story as you're both experiencing it really changes the way you experience a story. especially as i'm typically the person who remembers more of the cutscene than said friend, every now and then they ask for a recap - which is honestly surprisingly rewarding. since the both of us actually *want* to experience this story, it forces me to pay attention like I'm studying for the most fun test of my life. and well, I should have expected that the multiplayer part of an MMO would make me enjoy it more
The Hildebrand questline is honestly what saved the game for me, that and having friends play it. Hands down the best FF side story I've ever seen - perhaps the best MMO side story I've ever seen tbh
How much do I love the Manderville Quests? There's a quest in Endwalker where a man asks you to oil him up "For Science". And I REFUSED because I didn't wanted to cheat on Hildi.
Ironically for me, that quest line is the one part of the game I just can't stand and I am only powering through it because it's a blue quest line with some neat rewards.
idk- do you consider Sorrow of Werlyt a side story? If so, that one is by far my favorite. But Hildi is fun, yeah. though I wish I hadn't done them all at once. I hit some pretty bad secondhand embarrassment overload.
At 28:15 we realize that this video was the longest, most impressive and most instructive formulation of "It is not for the destination, it is for the journey" that the internet has ever seen
I love this - and I also love cats - cat girls & cat boys. They are just the right size for the space they fill on the screen. I also love how you explain - and you have a lovely voice. I come back and watch this every couple months. I like the FFXIV story, but ...yeah... the grind gets to me after a while
Im more with Asmongold on this, ARR was amazing and it grabbed me more and more. Sure there were slow luls and repetativeness that made me take a break for a few hours and come back. But I love a good story, story is my jam in games and MMOs too apparently. As someone who spent 17 years on Wow /cough I can appreciate a good story in an MMO..which WoW was not for most of its lifespan. JoCat sounds to me like he isnt a story person, and thats ok. But then, he should've known beforehand the game is very story focused and thats the bees knees of the game. A 'main linear questline' to follow in an MMO should frankly be standard and the story actually good, like ff14 demonstrates. It should be a journey, a slow burn. I personally took 7 long months to go from ARR to Shadowbringrs 5.3 at the time and I had the best time in my life since playing Vanilla WoW all those many years ago. To really immerse myself in the universe, to craft and level (too many) jobs at the time to try out, gathering jobs, Anima HW Dark Knight sword questline that I really wanted to do to look like an awesome DRK when I was playing through ShB, I took my time and enjoyed it... It did help ALITTLE bit that when I started playing In feb 2020 the pandemic was in full swing and my job stopped being a thing for a few months so lol :( but yeah.
Ngl I’m about 40 hours in and this came at a perfect time. It’s been rough getting through lv 20 MSQ when I already have a lv 40 job bc of how slow it was I picked up archer just to do it. It’s made me want to actually pay attention at least for now I just feel like I don’t have that much time to play so I want to enjoy it not fo fetch quests. And there’s a lot of game mechanics that I havnt experienced yet and don’t really have a veteran to go through the game with so we’ll see how jt goes. I’ve been hype af for this game ever since it went on hiatus and stopped being sold
Do what one of my friends did, play it for a set amount of time. Especially ARR, I honestly think for at least ARR playing it in bite size increments does a good enough job to ease yourself. I'll give you a tad of context, in 2.1 and 2.2 is what I'd consider the roughest patches of the game, but that's mainly due to the fact that SE though XIV would collapse relatively soon, so when the progress numbers came out just before 2.25, the player base at the time (roughly about 400-800k accounts) were celebrating. Then comes 2.3 trailer and people see the new class speculation (Ninja tease) and Crystal Tower is introduced. 2.4 with Ninja introduction....the game was heading towards expansion and speculation was on the rise. ARR post patches could be seen as much of a test-bed of things that worked and didn't work. Things that would eventually not make it to other expansions. Slowly the player systems in the game get better along side the story. Sure you'll have those lulls in the story or things that make you go 'wtf' or 'why didnt this get cut'. Honestly with how gamers get treated by corporations to actually have games with good stories of old....in the modern day is seem like a false sense of hope. To get it and ask "what is it" just shows how jaded people get when faced with bad story writing.
This irks me so much! I get boosting EXP to let people catch up to the story faster, but ugh, it's so frustrating to feel like you're getting behind on the MSQ if you so much as sneeze outside the it. I too picked up a second job, but I just find it frustrating. I would have preferred having to do some sidequests between MSQ story beats, so the "saving the world"-thing is balanced out by more mundane adventures. But I guess the more impatient could go do duties or levequests or hunting logs or---- I think there should at least be the option to turn it off.
I don't know what to say, this video is incredible, made me sad at first, then happy, with tears of joy filling my eyes. Thank you so much for doing this! ♥ I'm sending it to my boyfriend who is a bit like you were in your early days on the game, and I have my fingers crossed that it will be helpful to him too!
Same exact story my man, then fell in love with it. Person I was dating at the time was super into it and heavensward was about to drop so I had to super grind it. Now years later they no longer play it and I was way more into it and doing extreme raids
Great video! I am a little over 200 hours into FFXIV and maybe 1/3rd the way through Stormblood, and I absolutely love it. Usually MMOs are known for crappy narrative/stories, but this game is FAR better in that field than most single player games. The Main Story is brilliant so far, and while Heavensward was my favorite so far, Stormblood is beginning to pick up a bit. I can't wait to keep going, as I try to catch up before the new expansion, so I can experience it live with everyone else, which will be my first time to ever experience a new expansion live with others in an MMORPG. This game truly is magical. I love being able to play solo, yet see so many others wondering around, making the world look alive, and I always have the ability to jump in with others whenever I want that. This has become one of my favorite games of all time.
Just watched this for the first time after finishing shadowbringers after 3 years. Me as a player of games told my friend who said if I wanted to just buy a story skip for ARR "Nah, I'm playing this the "right" way" fast forward to me stopping halfway through. Fast forward to about a year and a half ago my friend was begging me to get back on and he would buy me a story skip. I again said "no, If i play it I wanna play the whole thing." After he went to bed that night I decided to get back on and start playing again. I started playing more and I finally got through ARR. Then I got to Heavensward. It changed the game for me. I love Heavensward. Some of my favorite characters and by far my favorite moment in the game so far. The big sad moment... If you know, you know. I flew through Heavensward and then I got to stormblood which I did not like nearly as much and even now I dont really remember much outside of the ending and some of the characters that were in it. But then I hit shadowbringers. I was starting to get burnt out and I was really enjoyed the story that I had played but About when you meet Urianger again I stopped. My friend begged me to get back on and I just couldn't. He kept telling me that "you are finally getting to the best parts of the game. just keep pushing". I just couldn't I was so burnt out. I had played the game for over a 100 hours in like 3 weeks. It was literally all I was playing and the only thing I was doing was story. It almost reminds me of One piece. It is LONG and there are rough areas. BUT there are so many good parts and they Far outweigh the bad parts. And some of my favorite moments in the storytelling of their respective mediums. And would you know it. I finally watched one piece over the last year and just caught up a few weeks ago to see gear 5 in the anime. rewind back to ep 1000, God did I get emotional watching the "We Are" redo. On another note my main game for the last 7 years of my life was Destiny. The game that honestly changed my view on what a game could achieve. I met my best friends on that game and god do I love it. And if anyone knows about the Destiny situation right now, It just finally defeated me, I've become completely apathetic with it. And god do I hope they flip the script and make Destiny the game it can be. Because it is heartbreaking for me to look at the state it is in. With the decline of Destiny. It gave me the drive to continue FF14. I hopped back on and as of yesterday night have finished all of shadowbringers patch quests and all. And god... was that some of the best storytelling I've ever had the joy of watching, listening, and reading. probably my favorite villain in Emet. some of the best characters in the game. and Just some of the best moments like i said in it's medium. I'm beyond exited to play Endwalker and I hope that more people can enjoy the story as much as I have. :)
I found another way I got into the game was to have a specific look for my character. Once I started to use the glamor system it really helped to feel like it was MY character going on the adventure rather then just some random guy.
Hey Jocat, I just want to say that this enthusiasm for the series has been wonderful to the community as a whole, I have seen so many people saying that they tried it because of your guide and that they are glad this video exists because it braced them for what was coming. Also you finally got me into healing and I am honestly thankful for that, so glad to have you back and honestly, kinda wish one day I run into you just so I can drop dead in front of the internet's favourite Cat.
As a WoW refugee who started playing this for my Wife, I've been struggling on weather or not I was gonna buy a story skip since my wife and I are just hitting the center of Stormblood. I was having FOMO about Endwalker. My Wife, explores EVERY nook and cranny, but I love playing with her so much so I don't really mind. I just made a character I play with her. Slow, steady, we read, we do every side quest. We spend weekends crafting or going to the golden saucer. I also have another character, that I smack content with a bat, I don't read. I don't bother watching cutscenes. But I can't get myself to grind that side character past the story my wife and I have gotten to. I'm glad I haven't story skipped. Because the story so far is making me feel things And i love the quality time, (we both work and have two kids). I won't be story skipping, The endgame content will be there when We do make it.
The best thing about XIV is that there's never any fully obsolete content. There is someone out there who will be happy to run the old Coils of Bahamut, whether you want it easy mode or hard mode. Much of the story is "go at your own pace." Sure, you could race to level 90 and start trying to prog P1S, but for what? That's just the loot treadmill version of the fight, getting better gear to be able to fight faster to.... get better gear. The story was already told in P1-4 which are freely available at any time, and which people will continue doing long after P1S is easy. Let your FOMO go. *Except* when it comes to time limited events. They're here for two weeks, and then gone for a year, at which point the content is gone forever and the rewards go up for sale on the Mogstation for $5. Don't skip V-day!
A useful tip:
If you accidently skip a dialogue box (or the dialogue goes in one ear, out the other) OPEN THE CHAT and go to the "Event" tab (assuming it's the default settings) and you can see all the spoken dialogue from the NPCs. Saved my bacon a few times.
helps me TREMENDOUSLY on unvoiced cutscenes since you can fast forward and read it all on event
and in cutscenes you can double tap and it will open up the chat log
you can also re-hide the chat box by right clicking any of the tabs then hitting hide
**beware though, this click will advance the cutscene by one line**
and if you want to hide the cursor in a cutscene, just double tap escape to open and close the skip cutscene box
or enable then disable text auto advance (press space bar then the confirm keybind 2x)
or just press the confirm keybind (this also advances the conversation 1 line)
omg dude I've been playing until Shadowbringers without knowing that. Thank you SO much!
It took me forever to realize that was possible, thank you for sharing so others don't suffer my pain lol
Dear Catboy,
As someone allergic to MMOs I really appreciate your take on this, Jo. I briefly tried FFXIV with some friends and the social aspect is what appealed to me but _everyone_ I know adores the narrative, at least to some extent. Still don't think the typical MMO combat/pacing/structure is for me but maybe one day I'll have to set aside a couple dozen hours and fall down an explainer rabbit hole. Also thanks for the lil' shoutout haha.
Yours, Bee Boy
I'm already excited about the How About This Game on that subject :P
Even by MMO standards, FF14 starts out INCREDIBLY slow-paced and, in my personal opinion, boring. There are absolutely MMOs with far more interesting combat systems.
'A Good Enough Summary of FFXIV' :D
Hey, not every game is for everyone, and as much as I'd enjoy the hell out of "A Good Enough Summary" for this game, if it's not your jam, don't jam it!
Love your work, Barry, keep rocking it out.
Aren't you sleeping
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for talking about how boring the actual gameplay is within the MSQ. I felt like I was genuinely being gaslit by the community when I would complain and just flat out be told I was wrong for feeling that way.
Yeah for SURE felt that while going through shadowbringers. It was starting to piss me off lol. Like, I’ve slain gods, felled dragons, liberated countries and weakened an empire and I’m somehow still doing FETCH QUESTS!? I’m an international hero!! So why am I literally delivering SANDWICHES in some small msq quests or aetherite quests? 😂
I've been told how the story gets so much better after ARR. When I finally get there, 60 hours in the game, I discover the new realm and MSQ. Nice. Then I get out of the city after the initial introduction. Literally the first task I get is to speak to some random dudes in watch towers to give the reports back to the quest giver. My mental state broke instantly. I quit and uninstalled the game. I couldnt bear to keep doing those stupid quest one more second, because I was assured after ARR, its all but a sweet cake. Point A point B go back to A. Travel to C, speak to randoms, Go back to A...
Who in its right state of mind can tolerate this for dozens and dozens of hours ? A shame. Cause I got invested in the story. But GOD, the gameplay loop and progression is HORRIBLE. And the combat is not engaging one bit.
I've been thinking of going back to FFIV. But this experience paired with the fact I have to pay a month of subscription to even try the game again... Its like a MASSIVE warning for me. Anyway, the community is as toxic as it can get with anyone having critics toward the game. Imagine being so positive you become exactly what you despite. There's an utopia gone wrong kind of vibe in FF community.
@@mimmim13aiv Damn, and here I thought I was angry about it as just a scrub. I think the part where he talks about the mindset change is going to be key for me, and probably for you as well. It seems we have no choice but to either not play, play miserably (like idiots) or learn to accept that despite all of the greatness the plot itself thrusts upon you and praise it heaps, you're still always gonna be the world's most beloved part time errand boy/girl too. Like a former postal worker who can't escape his roots even upon somehow making it big as a multimillion dollar CEO somewhere but still insisting to do coffee runs and carry paperwork for his subordinates cause he just can't stop delivering shit and everyone knows it so they keep asking him to.
@@Taima I know this is a bit late but his advice about changing your mindset really helps, doing all this random bullshit does explain how people are so willing to help us halfway through or at the end of the msq, Haurchefant is a great example.
Anytime I felt like I was getting bored of the msq, I would switch into doing something else like levelling up other jobs or just doing other side quests.
@@crapcase3985true! I often go and do things like beast tribe, level grinding, even just taking a quick break to eat a snack and watch a video. Or I’ll do roulette and Wonderous tails
I hope you all enjoy this video as it has been a year in the making - not constant work mind you, more on-and-off over the time its been in production, but a long time coming regardless
I'm happy to have these thoughts that have been nagging at my mind for so long to finally be out there
it's a big loveletter to the game and my own closure to these complex feelings I've had about the game for so long
This video's already a joy and it's been like five minutes in for me. Thanks for making this, dude, your content's always guaranteed goodness.
I was showed this video by a friend who actually just got in to FF14! He tried before but this time around he's hooked.
Glad you're finnaly feeling comfortable as your true catboy form. Loved the video ❤
Thank you for the hard work
I really liked this video. I strongly related to a lot of your experience with this game.
After trying FFXIV several times over several years, I recently got hooked when I started treating the MSQ as an old school single-player RPG that just happens to have other people playing it too. That might sound kind of dumb, but it has made all the difference for me.
Instead of trying to rush through the main quest line and being mostly apathetic about it, now I’m actually engaged and interested. I’m no longer in a hurry to get to “the good part” because, like you said, it’s about the journey.
There is some pretty cool stuff along the way, if you’re open to it - and I agree that the Hildebrand quests are definitely some of the best stuff.
"Yes this is a real thing, this is happening now, I like this it just makes me happy." I could hear him blushing at the end and Jo. I have not giggled so hard EVER! You are adorable and I can't Wait to see more content.
BUT WHERE'S THE TAIL JOCAT!? WHERE'S THE DAMN TAIL!?
Jocat being happy about a thing made me happy 😊
And the little cat mouth smile after that, so adorable!
And if anyone has a problem with it, the community will TAKE THEM OUT cause they BE WRONG!!
Egg??
This video is the main reason I now enjoy FFXIV. I had much of the same gripes at first but I also now enjoy the game immensely for much of the same reasons. Thank you for making this!
It's slow at first but starts to pick up pace after level 50.
Every one says this but here I am level 61 and it still feels as boring @@sammicopor
I love the game, and the story, but the main story quests do kinda suck a lot of the time gameplay wise. Especially for me since I personally enjoy crafting gathering more than combat, but all my progress is level locked behind the MSQ. So I have to do it, I enjoy the story, but gameplay wise it's me having to take a break from what I wanna do right now to walk back and forth between NPCs for like 30 min, then maybe fight a mob or two, or do a dungeon. The boss fights I love though, not as a big a fan of the dungeons, but they're not bad either. I just get unlucky and always have to do them when I wanna be doing something else.
@@via_negativa6183 The people that say this are almost certainly in Endwalker or after. The payoff is there, I promise you, but it's not at level 61. It took me post-stormblood to really get hooked.
And that's not to say I didnt enjoy my time before, it was just then that I couldnt put the game down - every waking moment was "I want to play xiv." When someone finds that point of enjoyment will vary. Some people actually loved ARR, some it's heavensward, and for some like me it was stormblood. Take your time, don't burn yourself out trying to reach the "good" bits. This game is about the journey, so let yourself enjoy it.
@@via_negativa6183It’s as enjoyable as you let it be. A lot of people play for the story and end game, but if you don’t care about either it ends up not being worth it
I have a friend who started FFXIV a few months ago and he always lets me know when he unlocks a dungeon or trial so that we can run it together as he feels more comfortable when doing group content with someone he knows. One time afterwards he thanked me for always getting on to run stuff with him and I said, "I'm going to let you in on a little secret: veteran FFXIV player *love* watching/listening to new players go through the MSQ because (in my experience) we want to be able to play through the story for the first time again and living vicariously through new players is the closest we can get." He said he felt used XD
6/2022 Update: He just reached Endwalker and got someone to cover his shift at work to play it all day XD
True, I want to get one of my friends into it further just to be there when they do stuff.
That's true and awww that's actually adorable. XD
so this is the reason why my friend always wants to be on voice when I play....bastard using me for his own pleasures :D
Also, we really enjoy watching them die to the stuff nobody sees coming the 1st time.
(In regards to the update)
Weaksauce.
I took a weeks vacation and no lifed it
"And now you know how to enjoy FFXIV. You're Welcome!"
I made my journey through the MSQ so much better by practicing my Voice acting. I would try and give any random NPC voices and it was pretty fun and also helped me pay attention to what was happening.
thats so smart... trying this (currently in HW post patch)
You'll enjoy it! I did a second playthrough with a friend and we took turns giving the NPC voices
That's SO CRINGE. literally grow up
@altaiir541 bro grow up Jesus
@@FNigslol he's just having fun with a friend man, literally no harm done, not even a cringey video to stain the internet with. also great voice actors are a key feature of modern gaming and series/movies, so weird thing to take issue with someone doing it for fun
you came in out of nowhere and accidentally outed yourself as being insecure, so i hope you get past whatever's bothering you because shittier people could give you a harder time for doing things like this
Jo knows how I feel about FF14. I had many of the same gripes. And since I started playing again this year I wanted to come at it with a better head and with Jo's help, I have been doing a lot better. And I am glad you made this video Jo, as I know you have been working on it for a long time. Thank you for sparking some love for it again.
The "older players love watching newbies go through the story" thing is very, VERY true with me. I've been actively seeking out newbies to watch on Twitch (whether they be the higher profile guys like Preach and Pyromancer and Nobbel or smaller streamers like Giltspire who streams it every Wednesday evening), and reaction videos on UA-cam purely because I've enjoyed seeing other people experience the story. I still enjoy the game and have a BUTTLOAD of things to do (especially since I'm juggling two characters on two DC's) but that has been a fun thing to do on the side while I play.
I quest alone - I recently established as solo-person FC - and when I see another sprouts in area and they're fighting mobs, I'll standby and I'll chip in the fight if they're struggling. Or doing FATE with them even if I have to level-sync down. It's very satisfying, and at the end of that, with customary /bow and what-not.
This is me 100%
Too true. Honestly, one of my favorite things to see people react to the first time is The Burn (Savage) in Stormblood. You know the one I'm talking about.
@@KelvinYong77 I do that at times as well simply because of that one person who stayed with me really early in the game when I was leveling the healer since they allowed me to hit the enemy once before one shotting it. It was a boring experience but I was quite happy due to the nice gesture.
its the closest thing to experiencing the best moments of the story for the first time again.
Hearing the passion as he's talking about this game's story, and that he had the same type of gripes that I do for the MSQ has actually given me the drive to at the very least watch a story recap video, (the one i've got pulled up is almost 4 hours long so hopefully it's good enough to hook me) if not go back and do NG+. So, thank you Jo, for potentially causing me to sink even *more* hours into this game than I already have lmao
The part at the end "...I just like this, it makes me feel happy." That made me smile
I loved it so much
Every time I see a JoCat video it just shows how he truely is the most headpattable (Is that a word? Well now it is) youtuber there is.
He is like a cotton candy cloud, wrapped in chocolate. A walking cinamon roll of a character that you want to hug.
I need to punch a wall to feel manly again.
Oh, right. I was coming into this game as someone entirely new to MMOs (basically didn't even know what they _were,_ and so certainly didn't have any genre biases going in), and as someone who liked/likes reading and was (and still is) very much into slow buildup-to-payoff arcs and extensive worldbuilding, no wonder I took to it so readily.
I had the exact same experience! I'd played a bunch of other FF games and loved them, but never braved an MMO before - and my god, am I glad I did
I wasn't exactly NEW to MMOs, but it was the first time I'd ever payed for one. My sister-in-law INSISTED I'd love it and, unfortunately, I dragged my heels on joining for a few years. It was only when she went and bought me ARR (and then proceeded to buy HW and StB for me while I was still in my first week of ARR) that I actually played. It was a case of, "...well, I have this game, and a month's sub, so I should probably play it..." and I did. And I loved it. I'm an avid reader and slow build-up/pay-off is INTERESTING to me. I love how everything, EVERYTHING wound up mattering in the end.
I love reading the text so much I check on NPCs that aren't the main quest goal just for more flavor. Sometimes they be like "uh what're you talking to me for?"
As a big One Piece Fan, FFXIV just kinda sucked me in immediately
My primary form of entertainment is novels and I was skipping 90% of the text and nothing in the game could grasp my attention at all. Almost every character really rubbed me the wrong way. Then one day I was bored and changed the language to Japanese, I wanted to see if there was any nuance being lost in translation. And what do you know, the characters are *completely* different.
I'm not sure who is in charge of the localisation but jesus christ they did a bang up job of it. Made near bloody everyone a walking poster for angst, conceit and passive aggressive twatism for seemingly no reason at all. Have not skipped a single line since swapping over, it's a whole different cast with so many little things. There's still a bunch of Japanese tropes I could have done without but at least they are what they are and aren't being painted over with the rooster strutting that was the entire English localisation
I really respect the amount of time and effort that must have gone in to making this video.
It's been a long time since I've actually sat through an entire video of this length that talks about games.
I'm gonna give it a go mate, fingers crossed! Peace out.
I cannot agree more with the 'paying attention' part. Literally they'll pull out a detail that'll just make you jump out of your seat once you recognize it and it's such a rewarding feeling.
This MSQ is definitely worth all the the slow burn for me. Once you have the correct mindset playing it's well worth it. Of course just like Jo said, you can play this game in a multitude of ways, this game stands out so well on it's own with the MSQ or the gameplay alone.
Someone show Quinn this video.
Don't show Quinn this video, you need a longer attention span even for this.
This video is longer than Quinn actually played the game.
"I cannot agree more" not anynmore. That would mean you disagree. But I do agree that it is a neat thing they do.
@@delphidelion thank you English teacher I will fix
do you have any great examples of the story pulling out a detail in such a way that made you jump out of your seat? My problem with the MSQ is that having spent the last 6 months doing very little else (currently at patch 5.4) I can't tell if I've mentally checked out because of burn out or because it stopped hooking me. My excitement peaked at Heavensward and didn't return to HW levels until the 5.0 and 5.3 climaxes.
It was so fun watching your love for the game grow over time and see you reach the end. I love this style of video btw. I have been missing them!
The jocat video essays are underrated gems. Several times I have gone back to watch his one on klanoa 2 just because it a fun watch.
I've been primed to try this game out thanks to you. Now that I'm actually playing it, I'm having an absolute blast. I think that, having watched the video in the past has massively influenced me to actually enjoy the early game. I'm sitting at level 35 right now and its a lot of fun to just do stuff at my own pace. And yes, I level up every crafting and gathering job that is not fisher while also just doing my dragoon/archer stuff on the side.
I've started the game alongside friends. They are not enjoying their time with the story at all, to the point where I'm like: Where have I heard this before?
TLDR; forwarded this video to them and I'ma gonna re listen to this as well again now. Thanks for this one chief.
I will say: the bit about "take your time with the msq" is so very important. I have been playing the game for roughly 6 months now, and I'm still in the post-patch content for stormblood. I have often taken week or even month-long breaks from doing any msq content. Enjoy it at your own pace, it will make things so much better. This game is a marathon, not a sprint.
Me 2 years in only post patch Stormblood too lmao there's so much fun to be had in 14
I finished Shadowbringer only a couple weeks after Endwalker released but have ignored the new expansion in favour of lvling professions and checking out old raids. The Ruby Weapon quest (extreme trial series ShB) and onward story must be some of the best I've played in the game so far.
Any game that requires that many hours to 'enjoy' it is a poorly made game. The writing of FF14 is atrocious.
@@VictoriousLoL any games that make you enjoy the game for so long must be made right.
@@k.vn.k Except the entire video is talking about how it took JoCat 300 hours to enjoy FF14. That isn't made right. Hell, if I don't enjoy a game in the first 3 hours, I refund it or stop playing it, because if something can't grab me in the same time it takes me to watch a movie, it's doing something wrong.
Can I just say that I LOVE how heartily you recommended Hildibrand content without giving potential players even the smallest hint about what they're getting in for. I mean that sincerely, I think it's brilliant. I think you can enjoy it TONS knowing what it is, but oh god, going in blind? You are just NOT expecting the game to take that kind of turn.
Great video! Even as someone who already loves it, and didn't have the same problems. I'll definitely recommend this video to people trying to get into the game if they have these issues.
I didn't enjoy the Hildibrand stuff personally, but like all things, it's hit or miss.
I personally haven’t always liked the Hildi quests but it’s been so exciting to watch so many streamers get hooked for good on 14 by doing those quests. They are truly unique and so very very absurd!
Well this just makes me even more curious and confused about hildibrand
@@FFKonoko Hildi does that to a lot of people.
I love Hildi, and want him in the Endwalker stuff. I missed him in Shadowbringers.
Just wanted to send some appreciation your way and especially say I'm happy I found your channel. In particular, I am so grateful that I found this video when I started FFXIV, because your enthusiasm for the game and honest sharing about the rock experience getting into it helped me embrace my time with the early parts. FFXIV's story is bringing me so much joy
The minifilia joke about not being a character was hilarious. Personally, I was totally desensitized to doing time wasting quests, so I had no issue with the slow burn of the MSQ, but I definitely understand whenever one of my friends plays and they complain bitterly about all the parts of the MSQ that waste time.
This just goes to show that, when you recommend the game, you don't have to tell the person anything about the game being good at X amount of hours or when you reach a certain point. All you have to do, is let the person know that the game is STORY heavy, and have REALLY BIG EMPHASIS in story so paying attention to it is crucial. It's an RPG first (JRPG to be exact), MMO second. If its it doesn't tickle their kinks after trying it out, they can put down the game and try other ones as the game won't go away anytime soon.
I had a friend who was into FPS and MOBAs and has no care about the lore in the games he played because he's just not interested in it. He never played JRPGs or Western RPGs. He was my room mate, he saw me play this game from hours to end (I have 700+ days total playtime, YES I WAS THIS ADDICTED TO THE GAME) and he was curious as to why I was having so much fun in the game while he doesn't find the same amount of fun anymore in MOBAs and FPS games. He tried the game with me and he was starting to burn out around the post ARR patch that involves the Sahagin before the big fight and the last straw were the Sylphs *(I still remember the questlines that were removed involving these beast tribes because I played them and they are really tedious so I understand why it was removed even though it provides more lore context why we need to do what we need to do or why the thing happened)*. I never pushed him to slog thru and just told him to take it easy, slow or put the game down if he starts getting frustrated. Part of it is him trying to understand why the game is so fun to me, and similar to you, he feels like he is missing out. So he took a 4 month break, went back to the old games he played and then one day he asked me if I can play with him, this time I said, "Ok, if were gonna do this, then let's go all the way. I'll create an alt and I'll start over and catch up to you" To which he replied, "No, I'll delete my character, it didn't have anything special in it anyway and we'll start together."
Then I started to tell him to take the game slow, read the main quests because me and the game is not going anywhere. Needless to say, he followed my advise. 2 years later, he is now a Triple Legend (which is something I didn't accomplish since I am not a hardcore raider but an omnicrafter) and fell so in love with the game that he keeps recommending it to some of his friends whenever he is asked of games he would want to recommend and is excited play with them so that he can see their reactions to certain points of the quests. He was even the one that started to convince me to get into Savage Raids because he was having so much fun. Played Endwalker together and he kept messaging me that this game is something he really treasures and thanked my patience to go thru the entire game again with him even though I already have a max level character way back in Heavensward.
Also, additional note after getting hooked in this game, whenever he wants to take a break from the game, he tries out any RPG he can find, even the RPGs in the PS1 and SNES era, as he fell down the rabbit hole that is RPGs. He loves Witcher, Legend of Zelda and FFIV (to him it was the best FF game next to FFXIV) because it resonated with him having a brother that felt distant, yet always there when he needed him most. So whenever the topic of him being an RPG nut, from being an FPS and MOBA fiend, I always get the blame. KEKW
P.S. English is my second language so I hope I did not misspoke. LUL
Your english is flawless. I had no idea it wasn't your first language until you said so.
The most common question I’ve found myself asking more experienced players during the MSQ is “so when’s the next dungeon?” and I think you explained why that is very well
It’s called immaturity. One day if you’re lucky, you’ll learn to stop and smell the roses. To enjoy a game in full, and appreciate all of the work and care that goes into the minor details in between the larger set pieces. Stay in school
@@austins.2495 Or maybe people prefer different things. Sometimes I don't want a visual novel and I just want to play and do something challenging.
@@austins.2495 Or maybe I've stopped to smell the roses 200 times already and I just want to actually play the game? I get its a story driven MMO and there's 10 years + of content to catch up on. I totally get it. But at the end of the day, I did buy a game. The percentage of gameplay to story is way off to be enjoyable. I can't even play with friends until I hit a dungeon because even though we're sitting in a discord call, everyones quiet focusing on the story until they actually have a quest that requires you to play the game. For every 2 hours of story, there's about 30 minutes of actual gameplay. That's a terrible mix and the reason why a lot of new players burnout.
@@austins.2495 or maybe I want to play a massive multiplayer online game
@@gamewarrior9107 buddy that’s just a genre..
Playing through ARR again recently I realized the MSQ is like a skeleton of just the basic plot. I found a ton of cool stuff by talking to the optional NPC's in the Waking Sands between quests. Things you wouldn't ever expect like an origin story for Arenvald's silver armor lol. Those have been filling out the story and making it feel much less like a saturday morning cartoon where the primal of the week gets slain by the one person immune to them.
ARR had me burned out like 3 times before i pushed through. Stormblood too repelled me once or twice.
Sometimes, Eorzea tests your patience.
I quit once on ARR and once in Stormblood. I feel you bud
It took me until the middle of Stormblood to get me to enjoy playing through the story quests
Boy does it. Heck I'm only in the free trial(I started playing for real after the free trial got extended to include all of Heavensward)but I quit and started fresh cause my reason was real life related and a(metaphorical) seed of doubt got planted in my mindset but thanks to my friends I deleted my character in Diablos cause it reminded me of what happened irl and started fresh in Faerie where they all were and I actually felt motivated to play it again and I'm gonna be looking into getting a subscription later on when I'm able.
Same here. I’m on my FOURTH attempt at trying to complete Arr. It’s not going well
@@FightOstinFight I admire your persistence, but honestly, if you're just not feeling the story and/or combat, that's totally ok. I love this game with my whole heart, it's my favorite of all time, but I will readily admit that the beginning is rough. I hate when people say, "It gets good once you get to 2.4/2.5, then way better in Heavensward!" Not a good way to sell the game or keep struggling newer players interested. At least you can say that you gave it a shot! Don't make yourself miserable; move on to other games.
I watched this when it first came out and agreed with most of what you said. I started when ARR launched, and skipped a lot of the story, manually, until about lvl 48. By then, I knew something was going on, but wasn't invested enough to care. When I started to sit down and read the words on my screen, I started to really like what I was reading. I had already started crafting, and gathering, so I had other distractions.
Now, years later, I am showing my child this game, and my wife and I are trying to help, so I sent her this video, and asked her to watch it. It really helps on the "slog". Thanks JoCat, I love your videos, and your ability to articulate your thoughts is showing in this video.
I was invested since ARR. Helped me through quarantine at thr start of pandemic. Did take a break at lqte heavensward since most of my friends were also taking a break and resumed last year.
Ff14 helped me through depression actually and it is one on the top games for me.
This video explains EXACTLY how I feel about the game. I love everything about the game, EXCEPT the MSQ fetch quests. I think I need to try and look at it at a different angle… One of my biggest gripes with games like this (not limited to MMOs) is watching my friends with a whoooole lot more free time than I do learn, grow and accomplish a lot of things. Leads to the friends essentially carrying me through the game and eliminating the challenge to a lot of raids. That said, I think I might just get back into the groove and I have you to thank JoCat.
Thank you :3
could always set it to min ilvl no echo and suddenly the challenge is back
The fetch quests are a pain and made me really miss the feature in City of Heroes where you could simply call the quest giver to hand in a quest and get a new one without having to traipse back (which wasn't as bad of an experience anyway as you could just fly or super jump or super speed back).
Hey, I just wanna thank you for making this video. A friend linked it to me a couple of months ago now, and it inspired me to gave the game *one more shot*, and take your advice about how to go about playing. I'm super into it now, more than I ever thought I would be! I'm having the best time, this game has now permanently altered my brain chemistry. THANK YOU!
I have really been considering getting into this game lately, actually after I watched a supercut vod you uploaded. This has pushed me more into the mood of getting it, thank you. Now I just need some people to play with.
I play this game p much loner and I can tell you that you don't need friends for this game. I bet it makes it better for some peeps but it's not needed to enjoy the game. I've managed to even get the HW extreme mounts aka the firebird mount p much without adding anyone to my friendslist
If you are someone like me who almost exclusively played single player games, you can progress through the game just fine by yourself. You can even do what I did and find a (safe) streamer fc and use them as a resource for progressing though the game (fc buffs are amazing, and even basic food will give you a 3% xp buff)
I went into it as a loner. I experienced the main story quests alone. And I really liked it that way. But one day I was invited into a random free company (guild), and for some reason decided to accept even though social gaming wasn't for me. Now it's been a few years, we've had our highs and lows, and we still play together, not only Final Fantasy, but pretty much anything we feel like trying out. I'm now part of a decently sized community that feels like a family, even though I went into FFXIV with the sole intention of playing an MMORPG by myself. So don't wait for people to play with. Go out there, get a feeling for the game, and if you enjoy it, maybe find a small community of your own. =)
People are also really friendly, you may find you make yourself friends through the silliest things, and it's lovely!
This kills me because this is basically how I felt about the Secret World, but that's kinda long dead at this point. Guess I'll give FF14 a try.
Same Secret world was a Game I wanted to Love. I bought the original day 1 way back when it first came out cause the concept sounded awesome. But the gameplay was so bad, I couldn't get past Area 2 cause even with all the 'Top Gear' I could get from the raid, bosses, and quests, the enemies were just too powerful and took too long to beat. And Area 3, was the same. Never made it to Area 4, ever, in all my years of player. And by 'Area', I do mean 'AREA', not as in, the 4th arch or 4th chapter, I mean in the very beginning area at the start of the game, going to the 'Exist' to the next zone on the same island. I only ever made it to Zone 4 Max, out of playing the game on and off over the years.
Which is sad, cause I WANT to experience the game and the Lore and quests. But holy shit the Combat and 'MMO Mechanics' is too fucking hard to enjoy. It's like trying to Solo a Raid in Wow, but it's just the the basic 'normal map' and not even the raid yet.
i left Warframe for FFXIV, I heavily recommend it, don't rush your enjoyment of it. They are allowing people to make accounts again.
That's actually a really great comparison (and sad that it's so apt, too). The Secret World had SUCH a great story, but even reincarnated as Secret World Legends, you had to fight against the MMO mechanics to get to the juicy story nuggets. And sometimes, that fight was just too much. 🙁
I hope you have better fortunes in FFXIV!
I gotta appreciate that Jocat gives attribution for everything. Thanks for all the work you do dude.
"This is happening, it makes me happy" That is a bloody mood!
I squeed irl and my heart danced. I, one day, hope to see jocat at a panel with their hair styled into ears with the ribbon. Just. Perfect.
He's a good noodle and should be happy
At the end there and with my... Sort of passing into "veterancy"... I can 100% agree with the "Veterans love watching new players experience the story" because all the reactions of friends who've started playing are priceless through all the ups and downs of the story in the game.
And, well, listening to their reaction when they find the Hildibrand questline is just flawless every time.
31:58 i feel like that's actually one of the biggest issues in the game that you touched upon earlier. So much of the game is effectively single player other than dungeons and trials. I really wish more of the game was co-op, such as being able to go into instanced story battles together, duty support dungeons together so you can take your time to read lore stuff, being able to team up to finish quests together. Etc etc. Like you said a lot of it will be your friend having to do the quests alone while you wait on the sideline until they reach the next dungeon or trial, then rinse and repeat.
I know it's a old video but I thought to give it a watch because my partner quit on one of those post ARR errand quests where Minfilia mentions that they are wasting your time with errands in the text box. Made them think "I really am wasting my time aren't I?" And quit. Trying to get them to get back for the free login event and got the reply "Nice try squenix, you can't trick me into wasting more time on pointless errand quests tho" which really sucks.
I feel like a weird outlier for the fact that I was almost immediately invested in the story and the lore of the world right from the get-go in ARR, which started with my character actually FEELING like a character in the story instead of just an empty avatar and having a race that appealed to me on a spiritual level (Au Ra) helped with that further.
I wanted to know more about mysterious folk like Hydaelyn and the Ascians and about locales that were mentioned off-hand like Ala Mhigo, Othard and Thavnair and it was just little teases like that kept me motivated to keep pushing forward. I'd constantly speculate about what was coming next in the story, and more often then not there were enough clues strewn about that I was able to make fairly accurate guesses, even for some of the more...outlandish twists like those introduced in ShB and EW.
I agree that most of the actual quests in the MSQ are pretty dull gameplaywise, but the little bits of world building scattered about even in the random sidequests managed to hold my attention all the way through.
aye, I always enjoyed the low level, humbling experience of classic wow and so ARR hooked me from the jump (although I totally agree with Jo way more of its MSQ should be moved into side quests)
Yeah, I think the persistent comments of "getting to the good parts" was a bit of a flag. I get that it's like being told you have to finish reading this book to get a prize but the book itself is what most people love. Missing the forest for the trees big time.
I'd like to understand how a Yes-Man can be considered a "character".
@@5chneemensch138 The DRK job quest line is for you then. It's definitely there for those who don't match the intended "Goku" like character which the story is mostly written for; those who simply strive for adventure for adventures' sake. The expanded dialog options given in later expansions also helps give some breathing room as well.
@@DrunkCat1337 Dialog options? Do you mean as in option options like a CRPG or as in "yes, but actually no" like in Persona 5?
A non-reactive character that just stands there like a corpse like in almost all calssic MMOs is way more of a character than a character that reacts outside of your control and is mute. Code Vein gave me an aneurism for that exact reason.
I _really_ want to like FF14, but the game actively tries to push me away from it at every opportunity. Last time I logged on I was close to Heavensward, at lvl 58, Ninja.
This is literally exactly what happened to me. Started out loving the crafting and other progression, but started getting really bogged down trying to get through MSQ to unlock things. Near the end of ARR I just kinda gave up and stopped playing. Halfway through watching this video I started the game up again and I'm gonna try to follow the advice here... hopefully it works, because I really think I could love this game and its community if I could just get into the groove. So ... I think I gotta go practice my imperial salute or something? Wish me luck.
Hey, so if you do end up loving it and have the time/ever want to respond to a comment, lemme know if you enjoy it, I’d like to know. 🙂
As someone who has tried to play ffxiv since it first came out on PS3 , December just gone me and a mate said "screw it we will commit till we enjoy it". ARR does suck but it sets up so much, just finishing heavensward it's not a game changer but all the other things you can do outside the msq while making your way through it is a blast. By time I got my character to level 50 , which I had done while I still had like 30 quests left in ARR I was hooked. Give it time, really commit if you can and you'll eventually see why it's so recommended
Forge ahead.
Totally with you. The MSQ made me quit. I simply couldn't bear being forced to watch Mary Sues talk to each other while *my* character nodded and nodded and nodded and agreed to do stuff I didn't want to do.
@@zomgl2pnoobffs Hearing the word Mary Sue used to describe characters in FF14 makes me want to punch you, but I understand you are still in the ignorance of ARR, so I shall refrain.
I started this journey in April with encouragement of a friend. Last night we just finished the 5.3 patch and to say there was tears and every other emotion is an understatement. I have fallen in love with this game. Plus your crap guides are some of the funniest xiv content on the UA-cam. Thank you for sharing your story.
36:55 I feel like this is one of the most important things, taking your time with the MSQ. It's designed to be a slow burn, and it's worth keeping in mind that all this content has been released over the span of a decade. Sometimes the MSQ's momentum is high, sometimes it's low, and that's a very deliberate thing. Don't binge for sake of getting to something later, play at whatever pace feels natural, taking things at the pace that feels right in the moment. There's no shortage of non-MSQ things to do when the momentum of MSQ is at a low point, and in many ways the game actually expects you to take these breaks from the MSQ, as part of how it loosely establishes gaps in time in an immersive fashion.
Thats the important take away. At the same time there's so much motivation from the playerbase, and the game itself that incentivises progressing to "the better parts of the game", meaningful story pay offs, and in game rewards.
Well this slow burn is the be all end all of slow burns. It’s really really really fucking slow
Msq is a huge, obligatory waste of time and I absolutely despise it. The curse of playing the game now that everything's out is that you either have to play for 2 years to unlock all the content gated behind msq or straight out pay for it. The only way I'd be ok with it is if I can "trigger" the dialogue and go about my business as an addon reads it to me & cutscenes playing in the corner of my screen. It is not a slow burn, it is a video of a fireplace playing on loop.
@@aliceblack3533 i think thats sort of a you problem? Because thats how the game is? Theres a very heavy emphasis on story in ffxiv. And if it isnt drawin ya in then i suggest hoping ship to another mmo. Cos this game really just aint for you if you really dont like the msqs and i say this in the nicest way possible. Because the reason it burns so slow is because you cant just expect your character to be legendary warrior of light right of the bat.
@@aliceblack3533 it’s a video of a fireplace where people talk about stuff and your “character” nods occasionally and then runs off to do whatever it is that they said to do.
My main annoyance was that people with linkpearls still needed you to go to them and talk to them in person only to send you away again. Or instead of using their linkpearl to talk to another person with a linkpearl they send you...
But then how will I know if this is Thancred? 🙃
They explain that, linkpearls can be intercepted, so the important secret stuff need to be said in person. Heck, your linkpearl is hacked during Praetorium so that red power ranger can have a discussion with his former crush!
That's why they use the linkpearl mostly to tell you to go to HQ so that they can relay to you information.
While I agree for some of it, magical wire taps exist.
@@NibelungJ Still feels like a retroactive justfication for a real problem with their game design. Like not putting a teleporter crystal in Vesper Bay.
@@Healermain15 It's not retroactive, as I said, your linkpearl DO get hacked at some point in the 2.0 MSQ, justifying the need of communicate sensitive things in person.
This is still one of my all time favourite FFXIV videos to revisit every couple of months just to go through the butterflies of finding and falling for this game all over again
Lol same, sometimes during my hour lunches at work 🤣
I was in a similar seat, thought I was lucky enough to have friends pushing me about.
But I remember the exact moment I fell in love, I was gonna do the Shiva trial for the first time ever and thought the music was very pretty... Then everyone got frozen and it got all quiet, the finger snap happened and suddenly the punk rock ballad starts playing and I get goose bumps all over my skin. That was when I truly realised why my friends love this game so much.
I'm not suprised that it was a song that finally really got me into the game, whenever I get interested in something it's usually related to some music I heard from said thing.
This is art. I've been searching for a game to suck up my free time *and depression* and this convinced me to try FF14. This is a great primer for what the game is about and how it's not wrong to dislike parts.
Ah man this game will be perfect for you
FF14 healed or relieved a lot of people's depression. Just try to read as much as you can. There is not much fun combat in the first 60 levels. But the story, and Gold Saucer can eat up all your personal time lol.
Really awesone video :)
As someone from 1.0, it's actually amazing how big and beloved this game become.
It's really a blast seeing ppl enjoy it for the first time.
Let's all have a blast
Conversely, I fell in love with FF14 almost instantly, and feel immense disappointment in the fact I can't afford a subscription.
But maybe there's something in this video that can help me enjoy FF14 even more than I already do, so we'll see what I think after I watch the video.
Edit: I might play FF14 again, despite not being able to progress anymore.
I feel this so hard. Being poor sucks
Man I feel this except I can't play it in general cuz I don't have anything to play it on what I would give in order to finally play this game
This is absolutely an excuse to try out more of what the game has to offer, even in the free trial.
I have some friends who embarked on the craft/gather everything themselves route, who we brought along to do the high end trials/raids of ARR with, heck even one who became a collect-aholic when he realized his old obsession: FF8's card game Triple Triad, was basically all here too.
Caveat being that it helps to have some friends one linkshell call away, but there's still plenty of other optional non-MSQ content to mess around with.
@@AxiamWolfe
I have milked the free trial already, and it is bone dry.
Time to work a bit, its definitely worth it.
Also you are not forced to sub every single month, i personally unsub everytime i play
Thanks Jocat. A few of my friends recently got REALLY invested into FFXIV so I decided to join them, but ultimately ran into the same issues as you with ARR. I made it about halfway through trudging through the MSQ until I ultimately lost steam and gave up trying to get to the "good part" after about 30 hours of playtime while the rest of them got through Heavensward and are now well on their way through Shadowbringers.
After watching this, hopefully I can give this game another chance with a new mindset, and not skip through all the dialogue this time. Wish me and my tiny conjurer "The Chris" luck!
[EDIT 2023]: I got through Ifrit and gave the game another break, but by now I realized I don't really like the gameplay of being a White Mage. So I'm now having a way easier and more fun time as my tiny Summoner "The Chris"
Been in and out for a few years now with some friends. This is really helpful. looking forward to a new outlook. Thanks Jocat.
Just wanted to thank you for this video, ever since I started paying more attention to the story my enjoyment of FF14 has skyrocketed.
I'm a reader by nature and I devoured every last bit of XIV's story and even the quests. Yes, even the subquests. Some of those tell very interesting little stories or add just a bit more character to the zone or give a bit of trivia that you would have never known otherwise. To have it ALL come back and be important in Endwalker was just mindblowing.
I am like this too. I talk to npcs when they are gathered, even if they didn't have a quest to give, I would legit want to know more about the world and its people, and I always appreaciated what they shared, speciallly my fav npcs.
I didn't have any of these problems you had, but I can apprehend them well enough. As a 90 omnicrafter/gatherer and someone who's currently working on getting all my combat, I feel the technical faubles of this game -- but you know what? The bits of great story I get by persevering are totally worth dealing with those. I'm going to second that Hildibrand recommendation, with much gladness. Just be sure to bring your sense of humor so that you can enjoy both the excellent writing and the fantastic animations. Can't tell you how many times I've burst out in laughter at some of the turns of phrase, twists of story, and especially the ways in which scenes are animated. On a side note -- read item descriptions the first time you get them. A lot of them are pretty straightforward, but quest items and especially _fish_ usually have fun text hiding in the descriptions. I've laughed quite a lot at those, too. They didn't have to go so hard to make descriptions interesting or funny, but they did, and I love it for that. Finally... when you are on your Minions page, you can hover over the illustration of a selected minion in the lower-right to get some flavor text. There's a bunch of funny stuff in both minion item text and in the flavor text.
That ending made me smile so much 💖 that blushing fun is exactly how I felt when I used my free fantasia to change from hyur to fem-roe. Love that you embrace it you wonderful cat-boy!
And I'm so glad you loved the Hildebrand quests. They seem to be very love/hate but I enjoyed them very much too.
Some people are so focused on the “MMO” part that they forget the “RPG” part of the full genra name. Nothing wrong with that, but it is something to consiter.
genre* and consider* stay in school kid, you’ll get there.
I've had to come to terms with 14 in seeing it mainly as a single player RPG with some multiplayer elements.
@@austins.2495 You're the idiot. Not everyone has English as their first language.
@@austins.2495 Man you're a stain.
I was trying out the game and skipping through all dialogues and cutscenes because I saw them as a waste of time, and as a creator that I value the opinnion of, I remembered you had a video on this topic, watched it entirely, and now I'm having way more fun with the game.
Thanks catman ^^
I just got to the gator family. And when i read that my cmpanions where equaly annoyd as me i really had to chuckel thinking about the laundry that would await.
I was actually kinda worried you werent joking that much. Turned out to be a rather nice quest actually.
another thing they do sometimes that I really like, is a questgiver will give you a list of like, 3 chores that they want you to do, but then the characters with you will actually split up and do two of them so you only have to do one.
What is it a reference to anyway, I assume something regarding Ill Meg.
@@millis6054I forgor....
No joke, i no longer know.
I really appreciate what Jocat said starting at 14:04. I am one of those people who thought the story was great all the way through, But I have gotten hostility online when I say that I like ARR. It's fine to not like ARR, but don't get angry at people who do
20:11 Exactly right. I started out ARR role playing my character. This might actually explain why I loved ARR so much I wasn't there to get through the story ASAP. I was there to be my character
I feel you I'm one that likes SB over all the expansions even EW.
Yeah I'm not past Heavensward yet and I'll admit the writing is much tighter but like...ARR had so much to establish? It drags a bit at points, but they spend a lot of time establishing the world, the stakes, and the characters. I really do like ARR and its a shame people consider so awful, it just had a different job to do is all.
I started FFXIV because of this video, and having just completed ARR I can see a lot of the points made. Yes parts of it are rough, but you weren’t kidding about the story being worth it in the end. Thanks for making this video!
I'm glad you really tried to stick it out multiple times to enjoy the game rather than just give up after the first attempt when you didn't like it. You kept at it and tried different angles and now you even love it. Makes me smile when I see someone give a game that many chances and have it finally click. :)
Let's be real, ARR is the resilience check of a FFXIV player, if you get past it, you get past anything. Also Jo, yes, your voice is amazing to listen to. Your self is so quiet and warm and level headed for this video, talking about a topic that touches a lot of people. You make your opinion very heart warming, and you just are such a man. Also the conclusion and ending.
I want to thank you for this - your story mirrors mine, and I was so frustrated when FFXIV players tried to tell me that the story was great and I should appreciate it more; the quests and MSQ were great and I should appreciate them more, etc. But I detested them and it's not because I dislike lore or story. I don't dislike those things at all. I just dislike the way FFXIV handles them.
Your perspective helped me reconsider my response to the game, and I am thinking I may give it another try eventually. I'm not ready to do that yet - my experience with the game left a bad taste in my mouth, and I am finding Guild Wars 2 so much more enjoyable. But! My mind has opened to FFXIV in new ways, and I might just be able to appreciate it someday.
You've nailed everything I felt throughout this entire video for me, now I'm hoping the latter half of your experience is true too :) Definitely gonna give FFXIV another shot now especially now that my friends are also sucked into it
Oh and amazing redesign. Perfection.
For me I was skipping most dialogue and cutscenes until I got to Coerthas around lvl 35-40 IIRC. One of the characters mentioned a dragon sex cult and I was like... wait... I should pay attention now. That story about the heretics and the Inquisition hooked me good. I still hated most of the post 2.0 patch quests, but I diligently read through them all anyway, and when it came time for Heavensward, my understanding of the characters and the stakes made everything that much better. I agree that the quests themselves still aren't great, but the characters and the payoffs make it all worthwhile. Oh and the Extreme trials are a ton of fun and made me realize that progression raiding with randoms was a thing in this MMO, unlike some others.
To anyone who finds this video and still needs re-assurance. I joined at the start of Shadowbringers to play with some friends. They were levelled so I bought a level/story skip to catch up to them. I played with them for about a month or so before they started to fade out a bit. In that time, I took to levelling other jobs via deep dungeons. I never touched crafting, never looked into Grand Companies, never did the Beast Tribes, and I never payed attention to quest content. I just wanted to experience the classes and what they could do.
Needless to say, my friends eventually stopped playing and I let my subscription lapse. When Endwalker dropped, I wanted to get back into things. I reached out to my friends to see if they were going to play, and they were not. So I didn't come back then. It took me watching JoCat's videos of him explaining the roles in a very funny and poor manor that inspired me to get back into things.
This time around however, I wanted to experience the game fully. I had always had other players telling me about the games story doting on how good and well written it was. So, when I came back after my hiatus I decided to make a new character. Completely fresh.
I can honestly say, I wish I would have done this a lot sooner. The game's MSQ plays like you are reading a book. I tend to treat it just as and bite through it in what I call chapters (fancy name for me taking breaks). But it is well worth it. I won't spoil to much for ARR but I had always thought things played out a certain way with certain characters and I was sorely mistaken.
The crafting is so addicting. I, admittedly, have a love hate relationship with it. I gripe and groan when I have to go gather things but took so much satisfaction in watching how each DoH job intertwines with one another. Even so, when you get to a certain point, it starts really paying off. Pun intended.
The Beast Tribes are, well, both cute and annoying at times. The quests are kind of meh, but seeing what they unlock for you is well worth grinding them out. Getting through ARR though, Sylphs for life.
Grand Companies were a challenge for me in the start, I hated running all across Eorzea to kill things that I had found in a book just to rank up. However, I am glad I did. Grand Companies come in clutch for so many things down the road. And although some of the features may be somewhat pointless now days, it was still a lot of fun.
All in all, the game has enthralled me like Garuda's big ol....well, you get the point. Extremely glad I decided to do my own thing and just enjoy the game. I joined an FC, have made some friends, ran some raids, and I am still progressing through the story. I plan on continuing this and sticking around for however long I can.
P.S. All of the characters in the game have their own personality and I love them all equally save for one I place higher above all others. I would cleave mountains in two for Ms. Tataru. That adorable little potato.
I appreciate this so much! I'm someone who tried free week trials and have a partner long with plenty of friends trying to get me to play. It never quite hit but this gives me a new perspective.
37:49- My brother-in-law had me skip the cutscene before the vault dungeon in heavensward, and I would say whole-heartedly I missed out on something extremely important.
You can actually see the great potential of Ishikawa's writing from the Rogue Guild's quest. It just feels so different, stylish and fresh compared to other ARR stuffs.
glad you found a way to get into it. For me, I was hooked from the very beginning. It's like the game was made for me. Completely immersed and filled with joy from the instant I got off the boat in Limsa. I still can't completely empathize with people who find ARR to be a slog, but I try to respect it and come up with ideas of how they can enjoy the game anyway. story skipping just ARR then watching all the cutscenes might be the answer- though there's a thousand little things in ARR I'd never want to miss- like Hildibrand or the Postmoogle quests.
My close friend playing the game was so conditioned by other MMOs (WoW, GW2, the ARR grind) to expect nothing of value from the story or writing that they skipped several arcs worth of Hildibrand cutscenes without really knowing what was going on. If they start playing again, we'll be sure to right this wrong.
I feel like I actually would defend the "run in a straight line from one part of said spoiler area and back again a few times over a course of an hour or so" simply because if it were just cutscenes back to back to back, it would be overwhelming. Like, the downtime in moments like that lets you process or think/talk about what's going on so it doesn't just turn into channel surfing at 4 a.m. without really paying attention.
"after turning in this quest several cutscenes will play in sequence"
Theres gotta be a better solution than making the the travel extra boring, so the cut scenes feel comparatively less boring. It's like adding dirt to your porrige in hopes it will make the oats taste sweeter.
@@kodaxmax I'm not saying that it makes the cutscenes "less boring" I'm saying it's the difference between speed eating and having a normal meal. The space between gives things a moment to breathe.
@@writer747 Don't worry the cutscenes with any sort of weight to them already space themselves out with hours of meaningless drivel (whoops I meant setup). The msq is a visual novel, having to teleport/auto-run/watch a progression bar/kill 5 piss easy mobs in between adds nothing.
@@Malcadork I'm not going to touch the amount of oof in that comment.
I’ve recently started playing FF14, and managed to get through all of ARR in a about a week and half because I was pretty sick and couldn’t do much else. Most of what you’re saying holds true, but I’d like to add my own point on the story’s writing:
Many quests, characters, and interactions are really not written well in ARR imho BUT, it’s the pay off that you mention that makes most of them worth it (really, Alphinaud and Menfillia are like cardboard cutouts of themselves). I have also found that the story is at its best in hindsight, when you have the information and it does make sense - and this is true not just for the MSQ but for a lot of quests that I would otherwise write off as uninteresting or tedious.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that, because the story takes its time it’s also able to tackle topics in a nuanced way. Most of the times when the story touches on a moral dilemma or issue it won’t take a single stance and say “this is the way” - it will actually explore it from different perspectives and let the player come to their own conclusions on what’s right and wrong here (even if you don’t dont have agency over what you eventually do). This is something I massively appreciate, coming from other MMOs where the story wasn’t allowed to take its time in the same way.
I’m only 170h in right now, and I’m far from losing my sprout badge, but the game has definitely hooked me. Especially the glam and gpose part of it.
I think I'm odd. I loved FFXIV's questline. I loved the story, EVEN ARR. Maybe it's cause I was and am a book nerd, so the book-like feel of the slow burn story really resonated with me. . . . I also am someone who likes LotR book version and even own the collectors edition, so my tolerance for 'standing around talking' is pretty damn high.
But I'm still at a point where I wish I could like this game more, and its all because of my friends, especially my boyfriend. They rushed me. A lot. I barely remember Stormblood because I blitz though it then quit the game. I came back for Shadowbringers and Endwalker--and those are my favorite expansions hands down--but the rush was just.
My boyfriend wanted to raid, and wanted all his friends to raid. End content, first month release. So every time I wanted go off an do a side quest, I'd be told to do MSQ. Want to do crafting, do MSQ. Want to try the minigames, do MSQ. It. . . killed the game for me, for a story rushed is no story at all--and I love all the side content. I don't like combat, and grinding, and raiding--I'd rather spend 50 hours in the Gold Saucer racing chocobos.
I guess I'm somewhat venting, but people, don't let anyone rush you through this game. Go at your pace, deviate as you want, and it'll be a LOT better.
What a horrible experience you got. For me, i keep deviating from the MSQ because of the side contents like crafting, obtaining relic weapons, leveling other jobs, side stories. My god, playing on a character then experiencing all the jobs is an amazing treat for me.
Don't get me wrong i love doing MSQ. There are multiple times that I got teary-eyed because of the narrative and I'm a 34 y/o guy.
this is what killed it for me as well but in a different way, didn't have as much time as my friends and i wanted to be doing content with them so i kind of forced myself to rush to keep up, and i burned myself out as a result cause i realized at one point no matter how hard i tried i just could not keep up.
Phoenix, Cyber, I know it's not something that is usually recommended for FFXIV (in fact, many, MANY people say not to, but I COMPLETELY disagree with them), but I'd honestly advise an alt in a different world than the people that rushed you. Come up with a backstory that relates to the world. Keep that backstory in mind as you create your alt. Once you're in, actively go look for an FC in that world (there are usually plenty advertising), join their discord if they have one. Don't rush to catch up with your new FC mates as, more likely than not, they'll want you to take your time and would be more than happy to help you out with content and just hang out while you do stuff. Take your time. Play the game following the personality of your alt WoL.
I love my main, but when I get bored playing on him (he's got nothing to do but levelling and roulettes right now, lol), I jump to one of my MANY alts with their various backgrounds and different personalities and just... play one of them. My main is a laid-back dude who was born in Doma but fled for Eorzea with his pregnant mother and two bodyguards when he was a child. I also have a quiet, yet sassy cat girl, my main's Super Serious baby brother (who was born in Eorzea), a super shy healer Au Ra healer who's emotionally fragile (and THAT'S super fun to imagine the backlash for when the person she has a HUGE crush on gets nuked saving her butt, and I even have personal story beats for that, such as a MASSIVE shift in focus on party roles), a mischievous Viera girl with self-esteem issues, and quite a few others, just because I enjoy imagining the story from the perspective of different personalities and races.
Point I'm making is, if your experience on your main has been ruined, start fresh. Still play your main, still hang out with your friends, but have a side character somewhere away from the people that damaged your original experience and make it all new. Play how you want, when you want. Enjoy the main story, side stories, mini-games and the rest of the content at your leisure with no rush. Maybe just sit in the city-state with the most active social life (for me, who mostly lives on Coeurl over in Crystal DC, that's Limsa Lominsa with Gridania as a secondary location) and just... talk to other players. Listen to a bard for a while and chill. No limits, no rules, as long as you aren't a jerk to other players (though if it's the personality of your character, feel free to be a jerk to NPCs. lol). :)
Hell, there are other ways to spice up your playing, too. For example, if you have a healer (or Red Mage with Verraise), write up a raise macro message to display your character's personality. For instance, one of my main's macros is, "No dirt naps on my watch! Up you get, (player name)!" You can also write macros that alter the message your emotes put in chat. I don't know how to do that myself, but I've seen it done and I think it's a cute way to add personality to your personal WoL.
And oh, hell, I just realized how long this message has gotten. I think FFXIV's wordiness has affected me. lmao
mmm, as more of a story and world-building nerd - I felt a bit nostalgic for the cut bits of ARR that had the WoL go through more of the world...
23:36 THIS. This makes me think about how EW [spoiler]
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brought up the 7th Umbral Calamity and how it wiped people’s memories, and how big a point it is for EW’s narrative. People will mostly forget that this is mention at the very beginning of ARR when we first arrived at the major cities.
bro i only read the first sentence but give a spoiler warning! Jesus. Thanks for ruining that story beat
@@25cats oh sorry about that. Will add after the cmt. Since the EW spoiler gate is lifted I wasn’t thinking to add warning. 7th Umbral Calamity wiping memories is mentioned in ARR so I don’t see this part is spoiler…At least you still have to discover how that point is related to EW at least? 😅 I don’t think anyone can guess without the context provided by EW anyway.
@@SoSakashii oh nvm, im totally on the wrong side here. My brain immediately activated the spoiler sensors for some reason and i misread everything. Sorry about that!!
I'm really curious, I don't recall those references in EW. Could you point out the point the 7th calamity comes up for me?
@@quin5805 When Scholarch Montichaigne lectured us about the nature of aether, soul, memory etc
That was a very interesting and enjoyable watch! While I didn't experience a lot of stuff you went over about the MSQ, I did feel some burn out with it at points despite how much I was enjoying the story, its definitely not something you can binge easily even if you do enjoy it a lot. I have found myself struggling to get into the game though but for a completely different reason that I hope I can find a solution to soon, especially since I do love the game very much and see how good it can get, its just getting past this problem that is proving to be tough.
Which that problem is not being able to confidently do anything in the game. Whether its just daily roulettes, trying to learn extremes or savage fights, finding a static, or just talking to people, I always find myself very hesitant or scared to do it, no matter how much I do want to do it. And its only really with FF that I have been experiencing this, I used to play WoW before FF, and while I experienced this problem a bit there, it was never this bad. I know FF's community is very forgiving to people, especially people new to a situation, but I still find myself extremely hesitant to do stuff, I have to push myself to even just do daily roulettes.
I know no one will probably never see this, but if by any chance someone does and has experienced this same problem or something similar and has found a solution to it or you think you might know a solution, I'd greatly appreciate any insight anyone might have.
It's taken me a while to get around to watching this video but I'm glad I finally did.
Definitely one of your best videos you've made and I'm looking forward to content like this in the future.
(Although, I guess a video about hundreds of hours of play might be just a bit hard to make a few of)
I feel like the odd one out cause I immediately loved the story and world building. By the end of ARR I did feel burned out ngl but the lore kept me going. I think it’s cause I love writing and making my own characters so I love experiencing world building and character development.
Same here. The game had me hooked from the beginning. I was annoyed by how long ARR was, but the story and the lore was more better
As someone who had no idea how to do things for any sort of MMO before trying this game, learning things has been challenging but fun. Watching this reaffirms the fun I’ve been having playing the game thus far, so thank you for that, JoCat! I may only be barely level 30, but I’m really excited for what more the game has to offer.
The roleplaying part at the end of part 2 makes me feel, to synthesize it, that most stories, especially MMO stories, tell you why this or that NPC matter. XIV builds up over the course of many irrelevant moments and characters why -you- matter
JoCat I want to thank you for giving my wife and I the encouragement to push through and give this game a second chance and we both are absolutely hooked. Still on the free trial, but we're gonna try to do everything we can in it before committing money to it
Hope you two still enjoy it together.
Don't worry you'll experience the burnout soon enough. Game gets stale real fast once you caught up.
I'm sending this video to every FFXIV friend I have, old, or new, as well as anyone who has ever expressed interest that hasn't jumped in yet. This is the most honest expression of finding joy in this game I could imagine. This is almost verbatim how I've tried to articulate how I came to love the game to people, but in a far more digestible format than my in-person gesticulations.
From 12:09 to 12:15, I love the adorable art of Jocat being romanced by MSQ-Chan and introducing him to her friends!
The Heavensward girl reminds me of Ysale.
Damn it, now I'm sad.
After watching this it made me realize something important: when I try and play this game like I played WoW I wasn't having fun, but when I let go of those biases and expectations and just let myself be immersed in this world is when I've truly been enjoying it. I'm still not even fully through ARR yet but there's been so much of the story that when I gave it the chance has just been magical, so going forward I'm gonna try to keep that open mindset and just let myself be a part of this honestly incredible world. Thank you for all your content, and for opening my eyes to what I was frankly being too stubborn to realize.
Returned to wow, didn’t you. Lol kids being kids
I came here from wow and the games have to be approached differently. Ff14 has been a great journey for me and ive enjoyed exploring a new game a lot, but wow is all about skip the journey and justget to the destination
This video almost makes me cry, hearing how much you enjoy the game, since I'm in the same place, of loving it like crazy.
And yes, the chocobo sniffing quest was very important, just for the WAY later dialogue choice "as transcendent as smelling a chocobo"
Thank you for making this video, it’s what got me to finally try the game. I am now done with ARR and I absolutely loved it
To show how everyone is different, the quest you speedup around 16:45 was one of my favorite of the expansion because of the fact it let me look back at everything that happened before, the ambience etc.
god damn you jocat your suggestive and debatable style is pretty good, I am usually not even interested in long format videos but I literally just listened. Good job on the video i know its old but i played ff14 first time ever like 2 days ago.
Jocat: Or just sit and listen as you do your dailies, I've been told I have a nice voice
Me: Stop calling me out Jocat
Oh my god, this is the first time I've ever heard any content creator acknowledge Fiesta Online's existence. That was the game that helped 14 year old me learn that pretending to be a girl online, even if it's just because my lack of interest in cars and sports made me insecure about my masculinity, was still lying, and that the relationships built upon that lie, even if they flourished because I was still, mostly, being myself, could still come crumbling down at lot easier than if I were just straight with people about who I am and what I'm about from the get-go.
It also made my mom think I was gender dysphoric, which I still sometimes have to remind her I am not.
when I played this game the first time, I was on free trial and playing entirely alone at the recommendation of some friends. I couldn't get my head in it at all. I had never played an MMO before (and FFXIV is still the only one I've played), and my patience was worn thin VERY fast. I dropped the game at level 30 without even picking up my job stone.
2 months ago, I picked the game up again with a friend of mine who was starting with me. it changed my experience so much. being able to talk on vc about the story as you're both experiencing it really changes the way you experience a story. especially as i'm typically the person who remembers more of the cutscene than said friend, every now and then they ask for a recap - which is honestly surprisingly rewarding. since the both of us actually *want* to experience this story, it forces me to pay attention like I'm studying for the most fun test of my life. and well, I should have expected that the multiplayer part of an MMO would make me enjoy it more
The Hildebrand questline is honestly what saved the game for me, that and having friends play it. Hands down the best FF side story I've ever seen - perhaps the best MMO side story I've ever seen tbh
How much do I love the Manderville Quests?
There's a quest in Endwalker where a man asks you to oil him up "For Science". And I REFUSED because I didn't wanted to cheat on Hildi.
Yes. The Hildibrand questline was what won me over, finally.
Ironically for me, that quest line is the one part of the game I just can't stand and I am only powering through it because it's a blue quest line with some neat rewards.
idk- do you consider Sorrow of Werlyt a side story? If so, that one is by far my favorite. But Hildi is fun, yeah. though I wish I hadn't done them all at once. I hit some pretty bad secondhand embarrassment overload.
At 28:15 we realize that this video was the longest, most impressive and most instructive formulation of "It is not for the destination, it is for the journey" that the internet has ever seen
I love this - and I also love cats - cat girls & cat boys. They are just the right size for the space they fill on the screen. I also love how you explain - and you have a lovely voice. I come back and watch this every couple months. I like the FFXIV story, but ...yeah... the grind gets to me after a while
Im more with Asmongold on this, ARR was amazing and it grabbed me more and more. Sure there were slow luls and repetativeness that made me take a break for a few hours and come back. But I love a good story, story is my jam in games and MMOs too apparently. As someone who spent 17 years on Wow /cough I can appreciate a good story in an MMO..which WoW was not for most of its lifespan.
JoCat sounds to me like he isnt a story person, and thats ok. But then, he should've known beforehand the game is very story focused and thats the bees knees of the game. A 'main linear questline' to follow in an MMO should frankly be standard and the story actually good, like ff14 demonstrates. It should be a journey, a slow burn. I personally took 7 long months to go from ARR to Shadowbringrs 5.3 at the time and I had the best time in my life since playing Vanilla WoW all those many years ago. To really immerse myself in the universe, to craft and level (too many) jobs at the time to try out, gathering jobs, Anima HW Dark Knight sword questline that I really wanted to do to look like an awesome DRK when I was playing through ShB, I took my time and enjoyed it... It did help ALITTLE bit that when I started playing In feb 2020 the pandemic was in full swing and my job stopped being a thing for a few months so lol :( but yeah.
Ngl I’m about 40 hours in and this came at a perfect time. It’s been rough getting through lv 20 MSQ when I already have a lv 40 job bc of how slow it was I picked up archer just to do it. It’s made me want to actually pay attention at least for now I just feel like I don’t have that much time to play so I want to enjoy it not fo fetch quests. And there’s a lot of game mechanics that I havnt experienced yet and don’t really have a veteran to go through the game with so we’ll see how jt goes. I’ve been hype af for this game ever since it went on hiatus and stopped being sold
Do what one of my friends did, play it for a set amount of time. Especially ARR, I honestly think for at least ARR playing it in bite size increments does a good enough job to ease yourself.
I'll give you a tad of context, in 2.1 and 2.2 is what I'd consider the roughest patches of the game, but that's mainly due to the fact that SE though XIV would collapse relatively soon, so when the progress numbers came out just before 2.25, the player base at the time (roughly about 400-800k accounts) were celebrating. Then comes 2.3 trailer and people see the new class speculation (Ninja tease) and Crystal Tower is introduced. 2.4 with Ninja introduction....the game was heading towards expansion and speculation was on the rise.
ARR post patches could be seen as much of a test-bed of things that worked and didn't work. Things that would eventually not make it to other expansions. Slowly the player systems in the game get better along side the story.
Sure you'll have those lulls in the story or things that make you go 'wtf' or 'why didnt this get cut'. Honestly with how gamers get treated by corporations to actually have games with good stories of old....in the modern day is seem like a false sense of hope. To get it and ask "what is it" just shows how jaded people get when faced with bad story writing.
This irks me so much! I get boosting EXP to let people catch up to the story faster, but ugh, it's so frustrating to feel like you're getting behind on the MSQ if you so much as sneeze outside the it. I too picked up a second job, but I just find it frustrating.
I would have preferred having to do some sidequests between MSQ story beats, so the "saving the world"-thing is balanced out by more mundane adventures. But I guess the more impatient could go do duties or levequests or hunting logs or----
I think there should at least be the option to turn it off.
I don't know what to say, this video is incredible, made me sad at first, then happy, with tears of joy filling my eyes.
Thank you so much for doing this! ♥
I'm sending it to my boyfriend who is a bit like you were in your early days on the game, and I have my fingers crossed that it will be helpful to him too!
I'm a newbie too and I'd love to possibly play with you all!
Same exact story my man, then fell in love with it. Person I was dating at the time was super into it and heavensward was about to drop so I had to super grind it. Now years later they no longer play it and I was way more into it and doing extreme raids
The passion on display here is heartwarming.
Great video! I am a little over 200 hours into FFXIV and maybe 1/3rd the way through Stormblood, and I absolutely love it. Usually MMOs are known for crappy narrative/stories, but this game is FAR better in that field than most single player games. The Main Story is brilliant so far, and while Heavensward was my favorite so far, Stormblood is beginning to pick up a bit. I can't wait to keep going, as I try to catch up before the new expansion, so I can experience it live with everyone else, which will be my first time to ever experience a new expansion live with others in an MMORPG. This game truly is magical. I love being able to play solo, yet see so many others wondering around, making the world look alive, and I always have the ability to jump in with others whenever I want that. This has become one of my favorite games of all time.
Just watched this for the first time after finishing shadowbringers after 3 years. Me as a player of games told my friend who said if I wanted to just buy a story skip for ARR "Nah, I'm playing this the "right" way" fast forward to me stopping halfway through. Fast forward to about a year and a half ago my friend was begging me to get back on and he would buy me a story skip. I again said "no, If i play it I wanna play the whole thing." After he went to bed that night I decided to get back on and start playing again. I started playing more and I finally got through ARR. Then I got to Heavensward. It changed the game for me. I love Heavensward. Some of my favorite characters and by far my favorite moment in the game so far. The big sad moment... If you know, you know. I flew through Heavensward and then I got to stormblood which I did not like nearly as much and even now I dont really remember much outside of the ending and some of the characters that were in it. But then I hit shadowbringers. I was starting to get burnt out and I was really enjoyed the story that I had played but About when you meet Urianger again I stopped. My friend begged me to get back on and I just couldn't. He kept telling me that "you are finally getting to the best parts of the game. just keep pushing". I just couldn't I was so burnt out. I had played the game for over a 100 hours in like 3 weeks. It was literally all I was playing and the only thing I was doing was story. It almost reminds me of One piece. It is LONG and there are rough areas. BUT there are so many good parts and they Far outweigh the bad parts. And some of my favorite moments in the storytelling of their respective mediums. And would you know it. I finally watched one piece over the last year and just caught up a few weeks ago to see gear 5 in the anime. rewind back to ep 1000, God did I get emotional watching the "We Are" redo. On another note my main game for the last 7 years of my life was Destiny. The game that honestly changed my view on what a game could achieve. I met my best friends on that game and god do I love it. And if anyone knows about the Destiny situation right now, It just finally defeated me, I've become completely apathetic with it. And god do I hope they flip the script and make Destiny the game it can be. Because it is heartbreaking for me to look at the state it is in. With the decline of Destiny. It gave me the drive to continue FF14. I hopped back on and as of yesterday night have finished all of shadowbringers patch quests and all. And god... was that some of the best storytelling I've ever had the joy of watching, listening, and reading. probably my favorite villain in Emet. some of the best characters in the game. and Just some of the best moments like i said in it's medium. I'm beyond exited to play Endwalker and I hope that more people can enjoy the story as much as I have. :)
I found another way I got into the game was to have a specific look for my character. Once I started to use the glamor system it really helped to feel like it was MY character going on the adventure rather then just some random guy.
Hey Jocat, I just want to say that this enthusiasm for the series has been wonderful to the community as a whole, I have seen so many people saying that they tried it because of your guide and that they are glad this video exists because it braced them for what was coming.
Also you finally got me into healing and I am honestly thankful for that, so glad to have you back and honestly, kinda wish one day I run into you just so I can drop dead in front of the internet's favourite Cat.
As a WoW refugee who started playing this for my Wife, I've been struggling on weather or not I was gonna buy a story skip since my wife and I are just hitting the center of Stormblood. I was having FOMO about Endwalker. My Wife, explores EVERY nook and cranny, but I love playing with her so much so I don't really mind. I just made a character I play with her. Slow, steady, we read, we do every side quest. We spend weekends crafting or going to the golden saucer. I also have another character, that I smack content with a bat, I don't read. I don't bother watching cutscenes. But I can't get myself to grind that side character past the story my wife and I have gotten to.
I'm glad I haven't story skipped. Because the story so far is making me feel things And i love the quality time, (we both work and have two kids). I won't be story skipping, The endgame content will be there when We do make it.
The best thing about XIV is that there's never any fully obsolete content. There is someone out there who will be happy to run the old Coils of Bahamut, whether you want it easy mode or hard mode. Much of the story is "go at your own pace." Sure, you could race to level 90 and start trying to prog P1S, but for what? That's just the loot treadmill version of the fight, getting better gear to be able to fight faster to.... get better gear. The story was already told in P1-4 which are freely available at any time, and which people will continue doing long after P1S is easy.
Let your FOMO go.
*Except* when it comes to time limited events. They're here for two weeks, and then gone for a year, at which point the content is gone forever and the rewards go up for sale on the Mogstation for $5. Don't skip V-day!