Final Fantasy XIV Related Articles

Hey everyone,
I was recently contracted to write a few articles for the website GamersDecide about Final Fantasy XIV.

There used to be articles here linking to a gaming website and frankly, very clickbaity. Turns out that the website has predatory hiring practices for their writers so I destroyed the articles and deleted the links to prevent any traffic from coming from here.

Thank you for the feedback that you gave on these! I am an active writer and always looking to improve my writing and my gameplay in Final Fantasy XIV.

Visually speaking, the skill rotations sections could use some work.

(This post is a out the MCH rotation guide, and I read it as someone who is not new to the job)

There's a shit load here, and trying to find anything is troublesome.
Consider adding a table of contents so I know what's where, and maybe even have the table be hyperlinked to move the reader to that section of the guide.

When you're going through the rotation info, you've got a lot of white space on the right side of the ability icons. Why not put the ability names there? Not only does it fill the space out but the names would help readers less familiar with the move icons (or players like me who don't look at their hotbars when they play so don't recognize many of them.)

For the rotation info, it's can be hard to parse what's what since it's just a wall of icons.
Perhaps try indenting the oGCDs so the parts of the rotation pop a bit more and are more easily scannable.
Also, put half of an empty line between them so they aren't literally stacked on each other.
Is there any way you can make them bigger too?

The way it's laid out, it makes it sound like some abilities are interchangable (like split shot / heated split shot, or hot shot / air anchor).
Highlight that one upgrades into the other.
Also, put those pics on the same line (if the sites formatting allows that).

Add headers for the single target PvE rotation, and the AoE rotation, mainly so the AoE rotation has its own header and info about one rotation doesn't bleed into the other.

It looks like this guide only touches on single weaving rotations. You should probably specify that in the title, or add double weaving info.

Breaking up the rotation into "3 phases" is a neat idea, though I'm not sure I understand the summon phase. You kinda push a button to summon your rook / queen and then forget about it. How is the summon phase a phase and what does the phase entail other than the summon you don't interact with?
Maybe shave it down to 2 phases.
With the summon, you can also add the battery power linearity translates into DPS, so there's no DPS loss or gain for summoning it at 50 battery vs 100. Using the robot in short bursts helps you stop from getting 90 or 100 battery at awkward times.

On that note, clarify to the readers when you'd wanna use detonate / overdrive early. Your info on those abilities mainly says they're there.



There's a lot of good information in this article and your idea to think about the rotation in terms of phases will be very helpful.

I quite like your use of images and your use of space stops this from getting smooshed on mobile (despite the margins).

Also, the history section was interesting and your notes about how they compare to other jobs is good. Like, I know this is an article about the rotation so adding more to your history section might detract from the main purpose of the article, but I kinda wish you wrote more there. That stuff was really good.

Oh shit I just realized OP wasn't asking for feedback but just wanted to share a resource they made.
How do I delete a post on mobile?
Now I feel like an unsolicited jackass.

Either way, thanks for the article OP. Do you know if you'll be making any others?
Hopefully so. I especially dug the apartment article.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Oh shit I just realized OP wasn't asking for feedback but just wanted to share a resource they made.
How do I delete a post on mobile?
Now I feel like an unsolicited jackass.

Either way, thanks for the article OP. Do you know if you'll be making any others?
Hopefully so. I especially dug the apartment article.

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To be fair, if they weren't looking for any sort of feedback they probably wouldn't have posted their articles.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Visually speaking, the skill rotations sections could use some work.

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The website interface was garbage and they offered no help in visually configuring it. The original version in Word actually looked pretty solid believe it or not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Oh shit I just realized OP wasn't asking for feedback but just wanted to share a resource they made.
How do I delete a post on mobile?
Now I feel like an unsolicited jackass.

Either way, thanks for the article OP. Do you know if you'll be making any others?
Hopefully so. I especially dug the apartment article.

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I am all for feedback so I appreciate you taking the time to read the articles. Unfortunately, the website I posted them through was utter scum and not honoring our contract so I was left with no choice but to remove the articles.

The rotation was really meant for basic players. I have been playing forever but I 100% consider myself a casual player and really wanted to make the rotation as accessible to everyone.

As for the topics, I had to write what the editor gave me. I would love to write about the history of Final Fantasy or even just the evolution of FFXIV, but the editor wanted clickbait so that was the end result unfortunately.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PDQueue

I am all for feedback so I appreciate you taking the time to read the articles. Unfortunately, the website I posted them through was utter scum and not honoring our contract so I was left with no choice but to remove the articles.

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That sucks and I'm sorry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PDQueue

The rotation was really meant for basic players. I have been playing forever but I 100% consider myself a casual player and really wanted to make the rotation as accessible to everyone.

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Mission accomplished. Your article did a great job there :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PDQueue

As for the topics, I had to write what the editor gave me. I would love to write about the history of Final Fantasy or even just the evolution of FFXIV, but the editor wanted clickbait so that was the end result unfortunately.

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That must have been heartbreaking.
While reading your articles I thought "I wonder how they got into writing about 14 and wonder if I could get in on that gig too, sounds fun~"
I'm sorry to hear it ended up being so much less than you wanted and I hope you can find a better place to write for.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ItMe

That sucks and I'm sorry.


Mission accomplished. Your article did a great job there :)


That must have been heartbreaking.
While reading your articles I thought "I wonder how they got into writing about 14 and wonder if I could get in on that gig too, sounds fun~"
I'm sorry to hear it ended up being so much less than you wanted and I hope you can find a better place to write for.

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I appreciate the positive response. It was a huge letdown that the company turned out to be so shady. It was my first freelance writing gig so I was very excited, especially since it gave me a chance to write about FFXIV, but I should have been more scrupulous during the contracting phase. There were a lot of red flags that I ignored in my excitement. Either way, it was a good lesson and some good writing experience.

If you do get another writing gig that lets you write about FF14 feel free to post those articles for us too.