**OFFICIAL** FFXIV:ARR Thread

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darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
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Yeah finished the HW story on Friday. I thought it was starting to fray a bit but Azys Lla pulled things together pretty nicely - particularly when you
meet Tiamat. I thought they might keep Dragonsong/Ascian/Empire storylines kind of distinct but I'm glad they're intertwining. More interesting that way. I did find it a little curious Midgardsormr stayed quiet for so long though.

Haven't done any extreme yet. Too busy crafting and starting to level WAR as well. I thought once you hit 60 that the 'armory bonus' below 50 would be 100% and 50% from 51-60 but so far on WAR it appears that I'm getting 100% bonus, at least for kill XP (FATEs are 50% bonus), in my 50s. I'm fairly sure it's not rest XP, but it makes dungeons a pretty nice route for alt levelling IMO.
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
4,603
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you sure it's not a chain bonus? Killing mobs at/above your level gives you a chain bonus which gives you more exp. If you're running the dungeon at the proper level you'll get the chain bonus, but not if you sync.

Can't decide which craft to take to 60 first. Goldsmithing is less useful now that all the crafting pieces are CRP. Seems like they want GSM to focus on battle gear and other classes to do CP/GP gear. I might try to take LTW to 50 first but skins are so fucking hard to come by and their stuff takes a lot of x-class synth items like holy rainbow cloth.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
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Yeah, it's not a chain bonus. That ramps up by like 10-20% with each chain, I'm just seeing a flat 100% bonus with zero chain. Which is then still further increased by XP chains of course. It feels like the armory bonus - but this was also basically observed only in Sohm Al. Maybe certain dungeons have inherent XP multipliers based off of the quantity/type of enemies or something. I don't recall how it was in Dusk Vigil.

GSM will still be good once some higher ilvl accessories are introduced in all likelihood. I'd expect vit melded jewelry to still be desirable. I really like what they've done to make CRP and ALC more meaningful as well. There's a lot of complaints about the dissolvents but aside from Terminus putty and AF gear augments ALC has never really had much going for them.

LTW was my first but I was also at the head of the pack, so I was able to buy boatloads of Dragon and Amphiptere skins for dirt cheap lol. I don't know that you'll find any class that doesn't require a substantial amount of mats from other crafts however - well aside from CUL (and ALC I guess). ARM requires mostly metal mats I think but also dissolvents of course. I started off with LTW and then got WVR/BSM up to the mid 50s at about the same time, personally I found it pretty useful to be able to make my own HQ 55-56 gear and tools which then lasted me to 59-60 on each one. But they're probably much more available at this point I'd think so that's not quite so useful.
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
4,603
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eh, getting skins is not a problem, its just the amount/difficulty in making HQs without scrips. Consequently leves are not as good for lvling because post 55 your items have very few good status effects and you're reduced to spamming collectibles, which eat up a ton of mats.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
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How is your ability to HQ impacted by scrips? I personally wouldn't spend them on the gear at all if that's what you're getting at. At least not before getting the master3 books.

Leves are plenty useful. The HQ turnins (from quest rewards) on the MB probably aren't as plentiful at this point - though it's always worth a look. But even if you're doing the crafting yourself none of the 50-60 stuff is particularly more difficult/different than anything thats come before.

Collectables don't really eat that many mats though either. At least not relative to leves in terms of XP:materials. I'm going off memory but a level 59 scrip turnin is worth, I think, 160k-190k XP or 190k-220k if it's starred. At the same time a leve in that same range with HQ turnins will be worth about 450k XP. The leve is moderately better but the XP from scrips is not too far off and has the added benefit of actually earning what you'll likely want most (for now) - scrips. Plus you can do them as often as you want and are not limited by leve allowances. IMO it's wise to try to earn some scrips pre-60 (where possible - there's not always a good option available every day) to double dip rather than just grinding them at 60 when the XP is all for nought.

I've done as much HW crafting as anyone - I still get crafts with no goods and some where it rains goods. There might be a mild reduction, at best/worst, but even if there is the fact of the matter is that Goods/Excellents are even more powerful than before by way of Precise Touch. Not to mention nothing presently is difficult enough to really make it an issue. Just keep in mind how powerful the delta between class level and recipe level can be, crafting more than 1 above your level before 60 is starting to get into some ugly penalties.
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
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Lvl 56+ crafts have their good/excellent conditions dramatically reduced unless you use a scrip item, it's not uncommon to go 10+ steps without a single good. It's really difficult to HQ anything with NQ materials now thanks to that, whereas if you had a good rotation before it's quite possible with a little bit of planning ahead.

I think collectible turn-ins are a good supplement because you don't necessarily have to HQ them, just need above a certain progress. For Leves you need to HQ otherwise the return isn't as good. Just trying to judge the difference between the 2.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
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It really isn't. As long as you get up to 7 or 8+ IQ stacks you've got a solid chance at HQ on just about anything regardless of materials or status. And that's pretty doable with a typical MM2 (high dura) or MM/Manip (low dura) path as long as you don't waste too much durability/CP on progress (Hello RS!).

Admittedly I've got all the top gear currently but my melds are pretty simple, I'm missing something like 20 craft/30-40control/11cp and I still HQ the 1star crafts starting from 0 quality more often than not. And anything below that, the 59-60 stuff, I have nearly 100% HQ and do it all with NQ mats at this point - pretty much any Good that I do happen to get is just PTed and I cut a step or two off at the end if I can. You just can't rely on the old "100% HQ NO RNG" type of paths though because they waste so much CP on Basic Touch and so often overlook the value of abilities like Rapid Synthesis and Innovation and even Standard Synthesis (not to mention Precise Touch and the new GSM and CUL abilities). And they had the benefit of being able to significantly 'overgear' the crafts.

Certainly one of the benefits of collectables. Especially closer to 50 the collectability required for the 'top tier' reward is really pretty relaxed. Nowhere near 100% HQ. Even at 60 the top tier is still around 1000 quality below max.
 

ikachu

Senior member
Jan 19, 2011
274
2
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I finally decided to give this a shot (via the free trial), seems pretty fun so far. I'll only be able to play about an hour a day though... do you think it's worth it?

I don't have any aspirations that I'll be able to do high end raids, but it would be nice to do a dungeon run every now and then.
 

blake0812

Senior member
Feb 6, 2014
788
4
81
I finally decided to give this a shot (via the free trial), seems pretty fun so far. I'll only be able to play about an hour a day though... do you think it's worth it?

I don't have any aspirations that I'll be able to do high end raids, but it would be nice to do a dungeon run every now and then.

Sounds like it to me.


One of us...One of us...
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
4,603
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if you want to dungeon you're going to have to roll a healer/tank. Otherwise you'll spend all your time waiting in queue.
 

ikachu

Senior member
Jan 19, 2011
274
2
81
Hm I'm definitely not opposed to healing, I mained priest and shaman healers back when I was in WoW. How does FF14 healing compare to WoW healing (I quit after a month of Cataclysm)?
 

cbrunny

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2007
6,791
406
126
I used to be really into it, but now I'm down to less than an hour a day with the rare all-day binge. For me it is still worth it. Lots of fun when you get hooked up with a good FC. The queue's are the worst part though, with DPS queues getting close to 30 mins on the regular.
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
4,603
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Healing is the most demanding class, but I feel like it's the most exciting class to play. Definitely a fun class overall no matter which one you pick, WHM or SCH or AST. I love being able to heal and DPS.
 

ikachu

Senior member
Jan 19, 2011
274
2
81
Boo :( the emergency downtime yesterday was right at my playtime. How often does stuff like that happen? I'm guessing it's just related to teething issues with the new expansion?
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
First time in a long while I've seen an emergency maintenance on such short notice. Speculation is it related to a critical exploit - it's not something that occurs regularly by any means.
 

pathos

Senior member
Aug 12, 2009
461
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I should note - the dps q's can actually be quite short, depending on what time you play.

I work mid to 8, so my usual play time is morning, early afternoon, and on my off days, middle of the night.

When the roulettes (sp?) reset at 10am, my dps q times for those are generally less than 5 minutes. Many times instantaneous. Even when I que up for a particular a particular dungeon, when leveling alt classes, generally the que's are 5 to 15 minutes. Of course, the que's start getting longer the later in the day I play.

But, yeah, healer's still have the shortest que times, regardless of time of day. Tank que's are shorter than dps, but longer than healers.
 

cbrunny

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2007
6,791
406
126
Lots of complaints about easiness of 3.0. Thoughts here?

I'm not far enough to really say anything conclusive (54) but in my opinion it's about where I would expect things to be.
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
4,603
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we'll see next week when alex savage comes out.

Right now the EX Primals are not very hard (more DPS walls than anything) but relatively unforgiving, especially ravana. Alex normal is about on par with WOD.

Alex Savage is supposed to be more difficult/on par with coil, so we'll see.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
Nearly got Warrior to 60, man I love what they've done with it (not to mention the tank gear in Aery, and a few of the Vault pieces, look amazing). Fell Cleave and the 60 ability (I don't recall the name) may just be DPS analogues of Inner Beast and Steel Cyclone but the class feels so new again with them and Deliverance. Usually I hate stance dancing in games (thought it was so annoying as a warrior in WoW and never liked the weapon swapping in GW2) but since it incurs no penalty, is on a short CD and retains your Abandon/Fury stacks it feels like they really got it right.

Also I had no idea these kinds of commands were even available for macros before now but I've got my Deliverance/Fury buttons setup to assign Inner Beast and Fell Cleave dynamically to the same key depending on the stance I activate - convenient as hell.

/hotbar action "action name" [hotbar num] [slot num]

Is the syntax to set a hotkey. Maybe I'll set up some for my fairies as well and actually use Selene not on auto-pilot lol.
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
4,603
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I tried that, but the macro interfered with smoothly switching stances (see queuing problem with macros). I'd often swap hotbars without swapping stances, and it doesn't queue the action so you sometimes end up having to hit your switch macro multiple times to switch stance. Since stance dancing needs to be weaved into your rotation, that lag has lost me my stance multiple times before because the macro wouldn't go off, and then when it does go off I'd turn off defiance accidentally.

Took out the macro and just got used to using different buttons.
 

Osjur

Member
Sep 21, 2013
92
19
81
So it seems XIV: ARR DX11 code path doesn't work with Eyefinity and I have to use DX9 if I want to play with three monitors.

Same happening with Nvidia Surround setups?
 

cbrunny

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 2007
6,791
406
126
So it seems XIV: ARR DX11 code path doesn't work with Eyefinity and I have to use DX9 if I want to play with three monitors.

Same happening with Nvidia Surround setups?

I gfuy in my FC plays SLI Surround in DX11 with 2 960s. I'm pissed my AMD cards are now basically useless... 2 7970s used to push Eyefinity quite well. Now neither CF or Eyefinity work.

A better question is will AMD/SquareEnix ever fix this?
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
It will occasionally not fire the stance swap and still change the hotkeys yeah, however I think as long as you don't try to activate it too far into the previous animation (like most off-GCDs, though slightly more sensitive it seems) it works alright. Also I've gotten much better about not mashing buttons in this game which seems to help lol.
 

PowerYoga

Diamond Member
Nov 6, 2001
4,603
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I gfuy in my FC plays SLI Surround in DX11 with 2 960s. I'm pissed my AMD cards are now basically useless... 2 7970s used to push Eyefinity quite well. Now neither CF or Eyefinity work.

A better question is will AMD/SquareEnix ever fix this?

not sure that's an AMD specific problem, but for bugs like that you're better off posting in the official tech support forums than here. Either way it's good to raise awareness for stuff like this.

SE's pretty bad about getting around to graphics-related/client fixes tbh, despite all the good things they're doing gamewise.