It's that time again!

Link: https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/59950973.html

Takeaways:

• The early report (on /r/ffxiv) says over 1 million, but there's a recount since LuckyBancho forgot to account for Shadowbringers coming to the free trial. Still an overall rebound.

• Overall: Increases across the board. Returning players, new players, a bump up in every facet across the board. Looks like Evercold Announcement + 7.x MSQ reignited interest.

• There's a particular note of how many people came back from a break.

• Not much that isn't obvious if you're tuned into the community.

A new experimental plugin, Aetherphone, is blowing up in popularity and it looks like a lot of AI was involved in creating it (one of the coauthors on the github page is literally Claude). As always with experimental plugins (or plugins in general, let’s be real), there’s risk associated with installing it.

I have zero technical knowledge and was wondering if anyone has taken a look at the code, and if the code is raising any red flags regarding malicious intent, vulnerabilities, or data scraping. If not, consider this a request - could someone with know-how dig into the code and report back with findings?

Aetherphone website: https://aetherphone.net

Its Github: https://github.com/XeldarAlz/FFXIV-Aetherphone

Looking back at Cosmic Exploration and the mass use of botting by the playerbase, it got me thinking on if the system and creation of the content itself is worth the lower player engagement, or if a rework of systems and design would be worthwhile to increase engagement from players to justify the cost of future content made for it?

Ideally all members would prog in pf outside of static to increase the static's overall progression rate. On one hand Idk how reasonable it is of a static lead to ask that of the static members because that is effectively asking them to commit more time to the activity (granted I said I exptected people to study in their off hours). One concern I have is if I ask people to prog and then there's one guy who doesn't that guy becomes an anchor and the rest of the group gets annoyed. Personally I'm progging UCOB in my spare time, but I'm not sure if I should tell the static members to do the same. Static leads, how have you dealt with promoting off hour pf progression in the past?

I have recently picked up the game again. I dropped it around a year and a half ago after finishing the realm reborn story just due to the fact the story seemed average but I loved the rest of the game. After seeing the Evercold announcement and knowing how much everyone says the MSQ gets better in HW I thought why not hop back in. I have been having a blast slowly going through the post ARR quests and loving the fact there is more Voice Acting.

However I am just wanting to know what I should be focusing on outside of MSQ. I've heard getting started on the beast tribes is a good idea but I heard something about each tribe being tied to a specific job or discipline style? I also want to slowly dip my toe into raiding as I love that style of endgame I just have no clue where to start with where I am currently in terms of progression. Also should I be leveling up other jobs? I only have summoner at lvl 50, samurai at lvl 63 and then culinarian at 56.

I also am wanting to join an FC but struggling to find one to be honest. I am on Raiden on the Light centre.

Is there something else I should be focusing on before any of this stuff I've mentioned? (like PVP which i see is more popular nowadays?)

I want to experience all this wonderful game has to offer and get the most out of my time here.

Any and all advice is more than welcome

I'm wondering if there is something specific about it that makes it so challenging for PF. I am currently on LC prog but I keep seeing people mess up on Forsaken, so it ends up being a trap group. Is it much harder for healers and tanks?

my thoughts

the msq should have ended at endwalker and new expansions provided upgrades to existing content and connected them to the main story better. we have enough solid MSQ that they can further refine and if people want more story then make more side missions that branch out to unique dungeons and raids that have their own connected lore.

gameplay improvements such as:

- evercold should not have had a level increase but did something like a customizable stats or horizontal progression of something. rework stats so that gear and item choices are horizontal and unique. i know people want another level but we need to refocus

- add an rpg feature back like elemental resistances and weaknesses (would fit everCOLD)

- new rewards system built in that connects with the customizing horizontal stuff. put it in all old dungeons.
add new secrets to all dungeons. new floors, new treasures, rare bosses that can spawn. add an exploring element or just new things to find, maybe even story sections that expand what was there.

- job reworking - allow cross class weapons equips, cross class actions, evolved mode is a good start that they announced for easing button bloat. add unique role stuff to encounters that trigger when the dungeon loads n parses party setup ie: use fairy to illuminate something on the floor

- make weapons have additional unique skills to give old weapons new uses. unless youre using your main level wep most gear is now useless except for glams.

idk what else but basically yea expanding on this idea that the msq has enough content that we can focus on other areas

First off I do really like Dawntrail, and I like the characters, the plot, and a lot of the game-play content, but I was talking about the story to a friend of mine and I realized something about it. The Warrior of Light did not really do anything in the expansion that someone else probably could have done. Like I know they can’t give the Wol a character per-say and from ARR to now they have been a very reactionary character. But I was thinking about the plot and the Wol either could be replaced with another Scion or just not a part of the story in the capacity they were, I feel like it would have been a better story for it.

What I mean by that is that I feel like Dawntrail is a good story held back by the player playing a character the is only there to observe and fight the big bads when told to. Wuk Lamat mostly comes to her conclusions herself, and is shown to have the strength needed to beat Sphene and Zoraal Ja.  

Wuk Lamat is the main character of Dawntrail up to The Promise Of Tomorrow, and I think that’s fine, but it would have been nice to see the Wol actually play the role of a mentor type to her and maybe not initially a part of the party that goes to Tural. I thought her journey while lacking more parts that would challenge her more. I think it was a nice story of her becoming a leader, and sticking to her beliefs and morals, it was sweet.

This led me to thinking that a part of the discourse against Dawntrail might have been due in part to the player character not really having a role in the story. I personally don’t think the Wol needs to be the main character in the story, after all how they have been telling the story since 1.0 has made it so the Wol can’t have a personality or actual character beyond headcannon or just being a good person, so it allowed the ensemble cast to drive the plot.

So playing the role of a functional major side character is all well and good, but I felt that in this story in particular it was done in a way that almost made it feel like the Wol was an after thought. I shopped around the idea to some people on if they were to add actual dialogue options that affected the story that allowed for your character to shape not the overarching story but bits and pieces like SWTOR, while I would personally not mind it and like it, I can see why many would not like that, as well as it would make previous expansions retroactively lacking in story involvement.

Idk, I am not a professional writer so maybe this was the only way for the story to play well in a MMO but I just felt like the story itself would have been better off without the Wol or the Wol playing a different role in this story (this does not mean I wanted to remove the Wol all together just that I think removed from the MMO and game itself, Dawntrail’s story would work better without the Wol or if you were directly playing as Wuk Lamat).

Heyos so first off Savage Learning Academy is a North American discord group and we thought it was about time we did a post here about the server since its gotten a face lift :)

In SLA we pride ourselves by teaching newer players the ropes of endgame content. We regularly hold events for ultimate intros and continuation, ultimate unlocks, savage fights, extremes unreal and now we are even doing Criterion Dungeons !!
Broken link below in comments to discord server

I’ve seen some chatter about this online with some differing answers so just wanted to ask myself! We bid on both a medium and a small this cycle, and if we HAPPEN to win both… I wanna make sure we claim the medium and forfeit the small. I’m aware that we’d be losing gil in this scenario but am mainly concerned with getting the medium plot :) thanks!

Hi all.

I have not played since shadowbringers and started playing again.

Currently a lvl 97 black mage and looking to get into endgame content and start with normal and move to savage eventually.

I am currently on the Ragnarok EU chaos DC and heard the chaos DC is a ghost town for raiding, trials etc.

What would be a good English speaking server for endgame content and active FC.

I do not envy having to follow up the arcadion. It is clear that having strong characters and theming and voice lines lend itself very well to marketability and memorability. No one remembers or thinks fondly about the phoinix or hippocampus and there definitely not merch of them.

So, while fully prepared to duck any thrown tomatoes, I think a Garlean themed raid revolving around a coalition of the remaining unmentioned legions would fit well. You have 3 legions with their legatus as the final fight with their own brand of whacky legion gimmick with their 3 subordinates. So that means 4 unique personalities a tier, with voice lines and magitek bullshit supplementing mechanics (and the armor rewards would look amazing). Just play them up as effectively kamen rider / sentai villains (extra points if they make my monster grow) the stakes are still real because any group of leftover garleans run the risk of causing a lot of pain and suffering in Eorzea if left alone.

Alternatively I would like it to be closely tied to the mythology of the Evercold world. Given the 4th's aethetic, taking from the Prose Edda or hell warring viking clans + chieftains.

Also tinfoil hat time and something I kinda don't hope for: Thanks to the red xiii and yuffie minions and the hardy daytona, maybe the raid will be vaguely (packaged differently) ff7 themed fighting loosely based on Shinra baddies like scarlet, heidegger, palmer, reno, rude, etc. I think that'd be a misstep

Having a complete main rotation by level 50 sounds awesome for daily roulettes and will definitely help new players get into the rhythm of combat much earlier.

World of Warcraft tried a similar approach years ago, and it ended up making leveling feel completely flat because you went dozens of levels without getting anything meaningful (a mistake they eventually fixed with the new talents). If our core kit is already set at level 50, that leaves 60 levels with very small incremental changes or plain passive traits. This will only get worse as the cap increases.

Given how often we sync down and replay old content in FFXIV, I understand why they want low levels to feel better. And if I had to choose between boring roulettes and 60 levels of unrewarding progression, I'd pick boring levels and full roulette kit.

Hopefully, the dev team has a clever solution so leveling past 50 still feels impactful. How are you all hoping they handle trait and skill distribution?

edit: typo

I was doing the Nier raids for the first time, get to the end... and someone starts the fight. And this cutscene is long. Do I get to enjoy it? Not anymore apparently cause there's an entire battle I'm now missing. There was even a ready check that said "not everyone is ready" and they just start it.

Apologies for my rant post, but it's really upsetting me especially when this quest-line was also getting to me emotionally a bit. I just wanted to enjoy it, but apparently watching the story was too much to ask for. I can't even rage quit the instance to do something else or try que-ing again to try enjoying the content cause it's forced into combat already a good way into the fight. I should be having fun, but now it's so soured over something so completely stupid. Again, sorry for the ranting, just needed to vent.

Good days, i am a return player after 3 years and im now playing back healer. However, i found that the MP consume was quite fast and just halfway, i almost lost most MP and even i have to stop attack (for an example, i fight orbonne and lost all MP just halfway on 2nd boss and 3rd boss, even last boss i also nearly lost all). Im not sure what is happening... even in past time i remember wont like this. May kindly help?

equipment: Diadochos, with 15 quicktongue and 2 might materia
GCD: quite less to use to prevent loss too much dps. for ref, about 1 boss 2 time or less, other time to use skill for cure
Assize for MP: will use immediately after cooling time
other class: playing sage and scholar too, even these 2 class will lost all MP too in halfway...

Apparently, a level 70 raid asking you to go out, in, and in the corners of the area justifies the boss to spin around.

To be short, I asked the tank to stop moving the boss and their friends (? I suppose) told me to calm down because they're learning the mechanics of the fight. I'm surely a bit too rigid but in my opinion, this doesn't justify why the boss faced west, then south, and if I remember well the fight, a bad positioning of the boss can vary his zones.

I didn't mention the cleaving add facing the party and hitting us all.

This little adventure let some interrogations in my head.

The question I try to create is something like: when are you expected, as a tank, as a healer, as a player, to respect basics of your class, of your job? I know it'll always exist bad players, and of course I'm bad too at some mechs or with some jobs. However, I think constant learning is a thing and I'm not sure justifying everything by "They're new" is a good idea. When does the "new" even finish?

(Of course I'm not talking about Sastasha, Ifrit or even level 50 dungeons and trials even if we can discuss if the basics need to be known there. Single pull is not an issue, mistakes are not an issue)

Sorry if I sound rude, it's not my intention at all. I hope too you can understand my question because it's very clear in my mind but the words refuse to express themselves...

Have a nice day!

It's a really really low key feature, it's like a bottom of the notes page on the wiki and I haven't heard much about it and it's one of the things I think has the most potential for the future of FFXIV

What I assume it's gonna be is something close to "VFX Mods" where they basically make a brand new job within the same job. I don't want to advertise mods here, but a lot of them are really, really cool.

My personal, complete pipedream desire that 99.99999% won't happen?

A Mogstation, full rework of Viper that turns it into a Roxas style keyblade warrior.

Here me out: Keyblade Wielder will never be a fully fleshed job. The Disney red tape is too thick and you'd need to go through it consistently if it was a full job. Disney also wants to get PAID and how do they make money off a job? How does Square decide how much money the Keyblade job existing has made?

Easy solution: Charge 50 dollars for this Roxas thing and then give Disney like 25 or 30 dollars and pocket the rest.

What do you think it is? Do you think it's something completely different from this? What do you want it to be, and if it was mogstation full reworks, what's your dream?

Ultimate resources exist but the best way to use them isn't as clear to me. The structure I came up with while trial and erroring through TEA is this. Toolboxes are for execution, guide videos like Tessan help you understand what is actually going on in the fight aside from," move left if you have blue buff," and then POV videos help adoption from 2d top down views to 3d execution. Finally sims exist to outright replace in game progression to an extent (the extent is how accurately the sim emulates the real event). I also record all of my fights and note to look at runs later if need be. This is the learning method I cobbled together, and my question is is this the right method or is there other methods people employ that are more effective?

My second questions is static social environments. My friend pointed out that if a static just comes to meet together for raids then it is a job and not a social environment. The lack of social connection will cause the relationships to be purely business like which make them fragile. Long story short things are less likely to go wrong among friends then co workers, thus it would be great if everyone in the static could be friends. How do I cultivate this environment without it being forced? For reference I'm a static lead creating a UCOB static now that I'm done with TEA.

Yes, first of course I'll have to apologize because I'm sure some will find insulting I have a large house and kinda complaining about it, but since in the near(right YoshiP?) future we're having universal sizes, people will be able to experiment to their pleasure

Now, why larges suck?

They're huge and they have the biggest space right, the possibilities are never ending!

No

The. Structure. Sucks

And I'll die in the hill MEDIUM HOUSES ARE BEYOND BETTER

Why do I say this?

Medium houses have a simple structure, middle floor basement and upper floor

This is virtually just and can be, 3 rooms that can be perfectly their own, this allows designers to either try to use all 3 of if they wanna limit a floor for the sake of using more items on other 2 or even one, it's a really simple separation of 1-2 walls and simply on each side, you enter, you go up down or stay center right at the door

Now what's wrong with larges?

Same as mediums, they have basement medium and upper floor

Medium floor is really solid, you have both spaces which really spacious, is the most used floor for solo floor designs, overall no big complaints, except something related to the upper I'll comment later

Then we have the basement, the basement is simple, you go down and you have a huge ton of empty space for you to do as you please

It sounds, good, ideal even, is your universal playground to let your creativity flow, and most clubs show this

The only issue here is the entrance to it

Compared to medium size, in order to go to the basement you have to go through the whole medium floor, which sure it may not be a big deal but suffers compared to the simplicity, then the fact properly covering the hole to the basement and making it be more organic is quite annoying

But now the elephant in the room is the upper floor

To begin with to access to it you have the HUGE middle stairs to it, which if you wanna use only the middle floor for your design is just a bit annoyance, going up the space between the walls and the guard rail is so small you really have no room to do anything, both side rooms are in the perfect neutral spot to have enough space but at the same time not being able to do much, they're not symmetrical meaning both sides are different and the windows exist... just because

I swear I bet you to search for more than 3- no 2 houses that use the upper floor with some design intent and not random stuff put in

I appreciate SE for giving us more ways larges and houses can be in terms of designs but the structure is something they really can't change and it sucks, people DESIRE a large and I can't blame them but when it comes to properly use it and work around it I really have to say is the worst of the 3

https://ffxivmobile.com/web202409/#/news/detail?lang=en&id=6356384a-2423-46a6-9781-87377895a917

Hi. I've been having great difficulty getting a group to fill for P3 fresh or BoA prog. I made it to P3 for the first time on Monday night with a group where I was a sub for a static. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get back to P3 because for some reason, PF is kind of dead for this prog point. I haven't been able to enter the instance since Tuesday because I haven't been able to get a party to fill. I've been playing every night in NA time. It's been 4 straight nights without me even being able to enter the fight.

I'm wondering if BoA is regarded as an easy enough mech so groups who clear P2 usually get past it pretty quickly, and thus there aren't that many people who are still on BoA prog. Is that accurate? Are LC and Black Hole the bigger walls of P3? I've never considered prog skipping before but I'm getting desperate. How long did it take you guys to learn BoA?

I made a TEA static. Schedule was Sat/Sun 7-11pm EST with studying outside expected. We were midcore. There was no clear deadline but the goal was efficient progress with expecting studying/simming outside. We were basically all fresh aside from 1 M1/M2 clearer. First night we were off of LL to LC. Then we got to BJCC. Stalled a bit there but was able to eventually make consistent P3 progress and it looked like we would clear. Then the clearer left, helped his phys ranged friend clear in party finder, and then the phys ranged left to. Due to that and random schedule conflicts that kept popping up I ended up dissolving it.

Eventually I cleared TEA in party finder but in all honesty I will not have the time in the future to dump into PF like I am now (I'm an engineering student and summer is almost over). I'd like to find a static that fit my weekend schedule for UWU/UCOB but no dice today. Thus the thought came to make another static.

The issue though is I made one last time and it ended up as a train wreck. Thus my question is how do I vet people so as to minimize schedule conflicts and make sure they don't leave the party at the end and clear. At the end of the day my goal is to create an environment where I can consistently prog in a time that works for me, but between schedule conflicts and random people leaving my last static was as volatile as PF. This is a problem because the main attraction of a static is stability, so without that stability it was just a bunch of extra logistical overhead.

I hope they go more in depth with the new open world system and relic weapons. Comic Exploration was great content and they should apply that to relics. Also I hope they bring back Artifact Gear upgrades.