Final Fantasy XIV Online Arrives on PS5 in April with Open Beta, Promises Huge Performance Boost

I really need to get back to this but the game requires having no life and I’m run off my feet for now.

@nessisonett Would Have Been The Perfect Game To Play While Under Lockdown.

I really loved this game until I got to the point where every dungeon I ran with a group was completely unenjoyable because a high level or two would just race through to the end. I didn't get to fight anything, pick up loot, or experience the environment or story. And if I asked them if we could slow down I got flamed. It totally killed it for me.

I still face away from the direction I'm shooting an arrow and shoot from back instead of my bow?
EG: are animations still a total joke and early PS2 era like a fair bit of the gameplay felt like. I'd love a good MMO, but it needs to be good...

@Deadhunter exact same reason I stopped playing. Other players behaviour completely ruined the end of the base game for me.

@Jaz007 Try synchronising those animations while there are 50 players and several monsters on screen at once. I can guarantee you that these sacrifices are necessary. The environments are stunning and the character models look great, while the particle effects are costly but nice looking. If there were synchronised and accurate animations for bard and machinist, the complexity would increase to the point where they’d have to shrink the square in which characters are fully rendered. Also kiting wouldn’t work which is a fundamental part of MMOs and other genres like MOBAs. FFXIV plainly doesn’t resemble a PS2 game as FFXI showed what a cutting edge PS2 MMO could do and it’s outclassed in almost every way. It’s just a stupid argument, that’s the way the gameplay is and the way it will be. It would be like changing Pokemon into a real time strategy game, the players wouldn’t stand for it. Tab based gameplay is here to stay and there are a lot of small intricate improvements between versions that only actual players would understand, so the gameplay really isn’t the same as the PS2 days. Total War has stayed fundamentally the same since the early 2000s but incremental updates have streamlined the gameplay through ways that outsiders wouldn’t have picked up on each release. MMOs are no different, change is just as slow as other genres but there are improvements if you look.

I killed a dungeon boss once by kiting it with my bard whilst everybody else had fallen. It felt good getting spamed with praise in the chat. I've got loads of fond memories from this game. I always thought that the character animations were really good on this. The voice acting not so much.

Custom ps5 and I’ll be sold!

I've never played is it worth jumping in now or give it a miss?

Any chance this version will be free to play online (Besides paying for the game and PS Plus)?

@Bagwag82 give it a miss. It's like having a second job.

@JustATomato
Thank you for the info. I will have to decide later whether to get this game. Unfortunately my gaming time is pretty limited and have a backlog. I still would like to experience this game before they eventually take it off the servers.

Hopefully the trophies will autopop, including the story related one. As I recall, that trophy doesn't currently autopop if you had done it previously on PC. Knowing how the FF14 director hates trophies, though, I'm not holding my breath.

@ApostateMage I’m a bard as well, it’s a good job for praise as you can’t really do much wrong and you help your teammates just by existing!

I tried the free trial up through the first expansion on PC and I just can't get into it. I know everyone says you just gotta push through and then it gets better, but I'm not really seeing the draw.

I still play it every time we get a new patch and/or expansion to experience the story (yes its good) but the game really needs a visual overhaul, it's starting to show its age.

@nessisonett

I’d actually say this is one of the better MMOs to play if you want to play casually. New players just be warned some of the MSQ is very much a slog.

Also tip of the cap to Yoshi and his team. Blizzcon is coming in a few weeks and WoW: Classic TBC is going to be announced, probably for May. Releasing XIVs expansion and PS5 upgrade a month before that really was a 4D chess move.

@ScottyG I played 80 hours in 3 weeks. I really did get way too into it 😅

@nessisonett

Most no-life I’ve ever been was April 2020 I got a Warlock 0-60 in WoW:Classic in under a month. Probably about 220ish hours in 4 weeks.

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times

@ScottyG I was so tempted by WoW Classic but I think it’ll take over my life even more than FFXIV!

@Deadhunter unfortunately I had similar experiences, even earlier dungeons group members expect you to be perfect at the game even if it’s your first dungeon

@Robinsad I had alright experiences with dungeons because you just say you’re a sprout and teammates will usually be a bit more lenient.

@Bagwag82 : Its worth jumping in, if theres 1 MMO you can play casually its FFXIV. A couple hours still gives you enough time to get stuff done.

@Bagwag82 Well worth jumping in, the main story is lengthy and for the most part you can play solo if you want and go at your own pace.

If you're a general Final Fantasy fan you'll be in for a treat. The base game (lvl 1-50) can feel a bit slow but you can get through it relatively quickly with minimal need to interact with sidequests.

The best bit? You can play the base game and first expansion (Heavensward) 100% free so all you have to lose is some time.

I really feel like I need to give this a try

Thanks for the info. I'll download it in PlayStation Now. 😀👍

In high school (a couple decades ago) my friends and I would laugh ourselves to tears at the prospect of Final Fantasy 14, it just sounded so ridiculous to us. Little did we know at the time that 3 was actually the 6th game!

Guess the jokes on us!!

NINJA APPROVES A GOOD JOKE

@SwitchVogel exactly the same for me!

The whole experience feels like a 90s mmo. The gfx are beautiful but getting dated, the animations are bad, the va is dicey, and the play just felt bland. What really kills it for me though it's the ps interface is, at best, serviceable, and that's being polite. It's really really really a game that needs a keyboard and mouse imo. I think i spent more time fighting the interface than playing the game, or took forever to try the guild quests just because i could never tell where i was going and had to flip through the interface a dozen times to get back to the map.

People that love it do seem to love it, but i just couldn't find a way to love it. TESO is a way better mmo, at least for console gamers, imo. I'm curious about PSO2 New Genesis too. That looks sooo good.