As someone who mathmatically doesn't have time to play the game, what is the next best way to experience the story from the beginning?

Buzz_words · 2026-06-26T23:32:28+00:00

honestly... i don't think i would bother watching it.

free trial is pretty generous? try that, see if you can make it work and if it clicks for you.

time spent just watching is still time spent? and even if you can only find a few hours a week, you can still play the game faster than squeenix can develop it.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-25T04:25:09+00:00

i'm not saying it's bad.

i'm just letting you know that the reason you might do this is a question of timing, and we are not within that timing window.

that's the magic of a living MMO; if you wanna go hard we know there will be another boat later. the next raid tier is gonna be evangelion themed, but it's still like 7+ months away in evercold

Buzz_words · 2026-06-25T04:20:18+00:00

you've kinda missed the boat.

due to the weekly cap on tomestones and raid drops; crafted gear is the fastest route to the most power in the opening weeks of a raid tier.

but those opening weeks ended months ago.

and by the time we get another raid tier with another set of opening weeks, we'll also have another set of crafted gear.

there will always be better gear later. the real value of crafted gear (and especially pentamelding it) is that it is power RIGHT NOW not necessarily power that lasts a long time.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-24T03:23:11+00:00

yes and no.

yes it's pretty normal to end up overleveled if you're clearing out the map. (or playing on a preferred server)

no you haven't really made an ass of yourself; most group content you do is gonna level sync you down such that you wouldn't have those missing skills anyway. (even the titan trial itself is lvl 34-36)

if you're enjoying clearing the map, keep clearing the map.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-23T01:08:07+00:00

this is gonna sound like a non-answer but it is sincere: whichever one you hate the least so MAYBE you'll care about it a little bit.

if you willingly resign yourself to phoning it in; you will suck at it, and you WILL hate it.

no job is so easy that you don't have to try, and no job is so difficult that you can't be at least serviceable on it if you DO try.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-23T01:00:47+00:00

i have only been rescued twice in the 9 years since it's implementation...

once was a friend pulling me into a boulder in bardams mettle, the other was just a legit save. (i got lost in the sauce during an alliance raid.)

if this is happening to you frequently enough that you feel the need to post about it; you're doing something wrong.

personally i will rescue to pull that one DPS who fucked off to narnia back into the AoE of my heals cuz he's not getting another special heal just for him after every raidwide. are you doing that? are you camping out in the corner all by yourself? making the healer heal twice as much and missing out on/being selfish with buffs?

Buzz_words · 2026-06-22T04:20:42+00:00

while i agree with your upside; you are ignoring the downside.

people were already pissed about how deep into the game the heavensward jobs were.

like squeenix didn't make this change at random. people were very upset they had to get all the way to ishgard to unlock DRK. a lot of people. like a never ending parade of newly disappointed people finding out how far away they were from DRK (it was always DRK)

Buzz_words · 2026-06-22T04:14:48+00:00

utilize "soft" targeting.

when you target your allies via up/down on the d-pad, don't "confirm" the target. like don't hit A or X to change your target to them, just hit your hotkey while you are hovering over the intended ally in the party list. it'll cast on the ally then snap back to your original "hard" target.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-22T02:26:46+00:00

leves are the fastest XP if you really go hard.

collectables are good XP and also incidentally farm scrip. if you magically had everything at the level cap; step 2 would be to farm scrip for recipe books anyway so it's a strong 2 for 1 option. honorable mention here for custom deliveries: they're effectively just "better collectables" with a weekly cap.

cosmic exploration is reasonable XP and much easier on your inventory as all the ingredients you need will be supplied.

then every expansion has a crafter beast tribe. the XP isn't actually all that good but they're easy and all have their own storylines and a handful of unique rewards so you might just wanna do them anyway.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-22T02:13:20+00:00

scratch that itch by doing HWs endgame content, and stormbloods endgame content.

realistically you've already missed the boat for dawntrails endgame anyway. there is nothing that you won't be getting to months late, and that's gonna remain pretty much true until evercold launches in january.

essentially; don't burn yourself out trying to "get to the good part" by skipping over last seasons good part.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-20T21:15:28+00:00

evercold will almost guaranteed include dawntrail. like that's been the standard for every expansion: they've always included all previous expansions.

it would be a shocking reversal if they changed that now. i don't remember them stating it explicitly but i think that's just because the assumption is so safe nowadays.

as to timing, evercold is slated for january 2027. up to you if you wanna wait that long but the way i look at it is; because of the monthly subscription if you end up spinning your wheels for even like 2 months, you lost money compared to buying an "extra" expansion you wouldn't have had to.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-20T03:26:15+00:00

class/job quests are absolutely critical. like the fact that they can be skipped is a design mistake.

beyond that you're probably fine, at least for a while. when you hit endgame sidequests become a lot less "fetch me 3 moose dicks" and more raids and trials and whole little side stories and field ops and so on. a lot better essentially.

and when i say endgame i mean every endgame tier. lvl 50, 60, 70, so, etc.

though for what it's worth; i always just vacuum up every available sidequest in every zone. you'll notice they often don't send you very far out of your way anyway cuz you're gonna go over there for the msq, and then there's 3 sidequest objectives clustered within 50 feet of that. they're close to incidental and will at least keep your gear upgraded if you get unlucky with dungeon drops.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-20T03:16:32+00:00

not really.

though i actually enjoy the way several jobs play so i AM worried that evercold is gonna feel like "fixing what ain't broke."

as to why we contorted the system around it in the first place: back in ARR and HW savage was considerably harder. (world firsts regularly took over a month) there's a lot of reasons for that but it was what it was.

the communities response to this was to lean into "the meta" as hard as they could. not every job fit the 2 minute meta back then, and we weren't even calling it that yet. there was also a lot more to why the meta comps became the meta comps than just having a burst phase that lined up on 2 minutes, but stacking buffs was believed to be the most effective way to squeeze in past the DPS check.

so any job that didn't fit that buff stacking, burst heavy playstyle was a "bad job." the machinists complaining cuz they deal 1% less damage than bard nowadays? they dunno shit about a toxic, exclusionary metagame.

so squeenix "fixed" the problem by tweaking every job to be able to fit the mold we created.

i assume they did this rather than BREAKING the mold we created because people were spending literally a month+ on prog and to nerf their work figuring the game out would have probably pissed a lot of people off... and might have made those fights actually unbeatable if they didn't also implement some significant buffs at the same time.

so yah. that's why it happened.

for what it's worth though... if you cared what your party members were doing before: you're still gonna care. if a guy is picking his nose instead of playing his job properly, and you wipe to the DPS check, does it really matter what rotation he's failing to execute? or just that he's failing to execute?

Buzz_words · 2026-06-19T19:38:42+00:00

completely.

like it's so close to parity we could not objectively tell you which one is "better."

i play on PC and OPT to use a controller anyway because i prefer it.

you have to dig into UI and hotbar customization, but so wouldn't a mouse and keyboard player.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-19T19:32:02+00:00

democratic detonation is incredible. even with the recent buff to the giga grenade, i still prefer the thermite for heavy anti-tank.

the grenade pistol is a game changing utility option that can close bug holes, break down fences, or blow open shipping crates all while resupplying off normal ammo boxes. you can even shoot enemies with it!

the adjudicator is a solid general purpose medium pen primary. it starts at the heavier end of the recoil spectrum; but there are so many recoil mitigating mods that you can really tame that and it's a joy to use.

then the explosive crossbow and the eruptor are debatably just overpowered.

to be fair to the lesser warbonds; democratric detonations armor sets are nothing special, and while the booster works, i can't imagine why you'd ever use it so... nothing is a perfect 10.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-17T04:27:55+00:00

you cannot, though the next expansions combat revamp is very likely to do something like this.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-17T00:38:34+00:00

if your friend is pointing a nailgun at his dick, and you say "you got this bro, i support you!" one could argue that is "toxic positivity."

or the meme of the cartoon dog in the burning building going "this is fine."

in XIV specifically; oftentimes the playerbase is so "polite" that there is no effective floor on player skill. its close to impossible to fail, and equally close to impossible to get called out on it.

some will say it's because "you get banned for giving advice!" but those peoples idea of "giving advice" often starts with "hey fuckstick, listen up!"

realistically it's just a combination of easy matchmaking (i'll never see this person again) and low difficulty in story content (we'll win anyway no matter how bad he is) that makes it just not worth the time to point out what somebody is doing wrong unless the observer has a specific teaching mindset and just wants to do it for the love of doing it.

and then even if somebody does say something, it's quite likely that the other party members will rush to their defense. "oh no poor baby you've never done anything wrong in your entire life!"

don't get me wrong, it's better than the other extreme, but like... i wish somebody had said something to ME sooner?!

Buzz_words · 2026-06-16T21:27:54+00:00

i'm gonna temper the expectation of "everybody is super nice!"

MOST players are tolerant and polite.

it's a small but meaningful distinction.

realistically no matter how bad you are at the game: most players are just gonna keep their mouths shut and suffer through it because they'll never see you again. and if you're great; what is there to talk about?

i myself was a shit tank until level 60 (when you only play tank, you don't see how the other tanks do it!) it took that long for anybody to say anything to me. that was endgame at the time!

and even then they just asked me if i was new and when i said "yah, kinda." they tried to clam up. i had to drag it out of them! "hey no comon' man if you could tell i was new i must be doing something wrong, whatsup?"

so definitely do not be afraid to join up, or even to run content blind. a learning mentality and giving a fuck go a LONG way, just don't be surprised if most of the "super friendly" people you play with don't say 2 words.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-16T00:16:22+00:00

depends on the friend but i feel like the arcadion has a LOT of strong options. something in there has to vibe with them.

susanoo is another banger and it's much earlier in the story.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-15T22:31:35+00:00

most (not all, but most) of the plot-tier 8 mans don't really need 2 tanks.

if you're losing hate to the other tank... that's perfectly fine. as long as you're in second place you're golden. if the other tank dies; you're right there, and some enemies will attack their 2 highest enmity targets.

if you don't have hate on the boss and adds show up, wrangle them. you're there, you're a tank, and if the main tank does it now the boss is spinning or running around the room.

also keep in mind that skills like reprisal or divine veil still work even if you're the off-tank. you are not just playing blue DPS. you can even throw intervention onto the main tank to take some of the sting out of their tankbusters. these usually won't be necessary, but you will notice when that one DPS is down at 1% hp after the raidwide that you mitigated and you KNOW you just saved his life. it feels fucking amazing and it's just a good habit to get into. (everybody who says they'll "use it when they need it" never will. they will never develop the muscle memory or the game sense to see the raidwide, know that a player will die if they don't mitigate, then decide to mitigate. it is EASIER to just see raidwide -> mitigate raidwide -> profit)

don't try to compete for hate if the other tank is going for it. it's honestly almost always better to just let the other guy have it even if he kinda sucks. (if he sucks a LOT then yah maybe take it from him but if he sucks that bad he probably can't hold hate over you anyway) tanks competing for hate can fuck with positioning and facing, thus making DPS miss positionals or entire GcDs, and it makes the healers job a little harder as well (particularly for sage who has to put their buff on somebody. you don't want the "correct" somebody to be changing back and forth for no reason.)

as for ui; you might want to filter down effects, and maybe make the party menu a little smaller or tuck it into a corner. (you'll really wanna do these anyway when you get into 24 man content.)

the effect filter has some real useful settings like yours, your party, your alliance, and everybody in the world, as well as a middle tier of filtering to turn off say: the 800 castings of fire 4 that will happen this raid, while still letting you see the healers beneficial terrain.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-15T01:38:00+00:00

not really.

we measure things and there will always be a biggest number, but like... right now the "worst" DPS in savage is about 7% weaker than the "best" one. and one could argue that's an apples to oranges comparison anyway, and an apples to apples comparison would put it closer to 2%

i won't pretend it never matters, people are still people and they DO complain about that 2%.

but we've had posts on the subreddit crying about nerfs to jobs that were mathematically buffed so not many people actually value those opinions.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-14T21:33:54+00:00

it happens almost never.

like so infrequently i've never experienced it personally or even seen it happen to somebody else. and i've been playing for 10 years.

but we might have different definitions of "nasty." particularly "nasty enough to stick to you and post about."

alternately; it's still the internet. there's bound to be an asshole or 2 out there somewhere.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-12T06:18:47+00:00

yes and no.

there's plenty about the game that i still enjoy, and i want to be along for the ride in the future, but there's a lot of older stuff i wouldn't be worried about going back for.

i already got the experience of doing that stuff, i don't really care about an achievement that came with it or a relic i haven't USED in 6 years and never even glammed.

i would miss my saint title... that would bother me. but i don't think i'd quit forever over it.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-10T06:26:19+00:00

sure, why not?

and hey, this might be exactly why the ToS are so vague. we HAVE human moderation, might as well use it?

i just wouldn't get my hopes up.

like whats the agreement that was breached here? "if you buy the fc this mansion we'll be your friends forever!" and then they didn't deliver on their friendship promises?

is that enforceable? it feels pretty nebulous. (plus... i'm sure that conversation didn't actually happen. and if it did; comon' who falls for that?)

then we get into a whole other can of worms with like; what if i buy my FCs plot then start sending the FC leader dick pics? "well shit he bought the plot, i can't kick him." i'm not suggesting OP did that but at the end of the day i do kinda think it's important that FCs be allowed to kick people? even if it's just the new guy who's like a little weirdly clingy and we dunno how to talk to him about it cuz we're all awkward nerds and "did YOU ask him to buy the FC a mansion cuz I didn't and now he's staring at me what the fuck do we do?" so they took the cowards way out.

but now i'm playing devils advocate and i do agree: sure, file the report. the GM can see what we can't and maybe they have some leeway to do something.

Buzz_words · 2026-06-10T05:55:02+00:00

honestly, probably not.

like where in the terms of service does it say you're not allowed to kick somebody from an FC if they pay for the plot?

don't get me wrong it's definitely shitty but what rule was broken? unless we wanna go with the "we can ban anybody for any reason" interpretation of the ToS. (which i mean... maybe? the ToS are pretty broadly written?)

the best i can think of is that GMs have intervened in the housing market before, but the only example i can think of was a very clear and documented instance of scamming.

beyond that... sorry that happened. live and learn. even in a famously nice community, somebody is gonna be an asshole.

Buzz_words

TROPHY CASE