What is it that you LIKE from FFXIV

Just out of curiosity because we have a few threads on a daily basis about what the game needs to get better or improve if you wanna call it like that.

What is it that you like from FFXIV so far? What is it that is keeping hooked or keeping you going?

The story. The fanservice.

The Youkai grind. Oh wait, no. Sorry, that kool-aid is getting to me.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

The story.

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Sums up what I like about it. And that you can't simply zone hop like in other mmo's and skip whole expansions with that, you have to follow the red thread all the way through.

Story. Believe it or not doing a fate for the first time or a legendary fate for the first time.

Primal fights. The list goes on

As someone who does 3D modeling work, the animation and character rigging in this game is absolutely astounding. To illustrate my favorite example of it, if you have a female character, switch to dark knight for a second. Bring out your weapon, and go into your idle stance. Now click on nearby targets. Instead of just having your character's head turn, her entire body will move, all the way down to the sword in her hands. The animators in this game are the true unsung heroes in my opinion. I've had numerous people who straight up hate this game concede and say "Okay yeah, the character models and animation are gorgeous."

Ear wiggles. :o

(and the story)

For all the negativity i've been feeling towards this game lately, the things I like far outweigh the things I dislike.

1) The story. I've played several mmo's before and I always end up just skipping through the story after the first five or six bits of dialogue. They always start out way too slow and they try to get you started with fetch quests and combat. FFXIV jumps RIGHT into the world building. It starts with introducing you to the interesting characters and lets you know a bit about Eorzea before it sends you out to kill ladybugs or cactuars. It gets you interested in the world from the very start, and never once slows down (until the 100 quest slog at lv 50 but that's a different topic..)

2) The dungeons. While not every dungeon is a winner, almost all of them are interesting and fun, at least for the first few times. The expert dungeons get killed off rather quickly, but the first time going through a new dungeon is always a good experience. I like to go through them with my friends for the first time, all of us going in blind and figuring out the mechanics as we go along. It's a fun challenge trying to figure out exactly what we're supposed to do, or what killed us THAT time. But it's fun nonetheless. Sure this magical feeling is only there the first time you play through the dungeon, but that doesnt change the fact that they put a lot of time and creativity into most of these dungeons (despite them all being linear hallways), and it really shows.

3) The community. I know duty finder is always a roulette, filled with potentially bad or awfully rude players. But the majority of the time I get a good, talkative fun group out of duty finder. There's of course the occasional rude player, or the player that doesnt quite know how their job is supposed to work, but for the most part the encounters I get are positive. Theres been too many times to count where we've met a really really cool person through duty finder that we talked with and goofed off for the whole run with, and then got very dissapointed to find out they were from another server. Despite all the bad apples this game has, the good players manage to shine through even brighter.

4) The world. Eorzea is an amazing place. Terrifying in some aspects yeah, but it's still amazing. Beautiful scenery, interesting lore, a variety of towns and locations. It's all varied enough that exploring it takes awhile to get stale. I only wish there was a little more danger out in the wild to make exploring a little more exciting, but the world itself is beautiful and very well crafted.

5) Primals. As someone that's been a final fantasy fan since I was a child, I got to know the summons very well. I spent way too much time watching Shiva shatter everything with Diamond Dust in many final fantasies, watching Diablos both terrify and impress me in ff8, and seeing Ramuhs glorious beard in ff9. These things have always impressed me as they were the go-to when I needed a large amount of destruction, right now. They were the most powerful things at my disposal for most of the final fantasy games. So coming into ffxiv blind, not knowing what was going to happen, I was both delighted and terrified to realize that I had to fight these things. The first time I ever encountered Ifrit was one of the most exciting and anxiety inducing moments, and its a memory that will stick with me forever. Being surrounded by the wall of flame, having that towering beast hunched over me ready to burn me to a crisp brought back all the memories of the times i'd summoned him in past games, having him incinerate my enemies or crush them with a rocket-punch powered meteor. It was intimidating, but it made destroying him that much more satisfying.

The primals are probably the thing I enjoy most about this game. They're always a challenge, and they're always fun. Especially Titan. Titan has always been my favorite primal to fight. It took my group probably close to three weeks (using duty finder..) to find a group that could beat Titan Ex, and I had fun every single time we attempted. That was a very well designed fight, in my opinion. I know many hate it, but Its still my favorite to this day.

I didnt expect to type this much out, I really didnt. But for all the flack this game gets, its really great and its really well done. Honestly I could keep typing, theres many more things I like that I could list but I feel like if I kept the list going any longer my fingers would fall off.

That it feels like a living gameworld. Few MMORPGs have succeeded to create such a living world as FFXIV and I think that is in great part thanks to the story. To have to play through hours upon hours of story and getting to know many of the characters of the world really makes the player bound with the world and its inhabitans, other players included. FFXIV just feels more alive than its competitors on the market, and this is what i think makes it a winner in the long run.

-It is story-driven
-The story has gotten better since 2.0, especially in 3.0
-The game's aesthetics are nice
-Eorzea is pretty
-I can play the game on my non-gaming rig Home PC and the graphics don't look horrible

1. Class Design
There are very few skills that you never actually use and very few skills that replace old ones. Compared to many other games, both single- and multiplayer, it's great that you don't just throw away half of the skills you get. The pacing was fairly good as well - it gets more complex as you go. Now that I've become accustomed to the complexity and pace of 60, it naturally feels rather boring to be synced to 17 and lose all my skills, but when I first started out, I actually found it rather good, because it gave me ample time to learn.

2. Visual Design
A few female-only attires aside, I'm quite happy with the way things look - not just for armors, but player and monster models and dungeons as well. Not everything suits my taste, naturally, but seeing as diversity is to blame for that, I can't find a fault in it. I'd just wish for more racial diversity, since everything is so human-ish >.>

3. The Lore
I have to say beforehand: I came from WoW. And the way they mishandled lore was...appalling. Frankly, if you want to offer Worgen Deathknights, don't write into your lore that Worgen are immune to undeath, choose between either. I wasn't fond of the Sargeras retcon that created spacegoats either, especially since the excuse was:"Sorry, I forgot and was too lazy to do research on my own works.". Don't even get me started on green jesus - you can't expect me to take your lore more serious than you are. So I am more than glad that thus far, the amount of retcons and horrible writing is kept well within my tolerance threshold.

4. The community
There are a few arseholes out there of course and the forums in particular often make me angry to the point of struggling for self-control, but ingame, the vast majority of people I met were really nice and helpful!

5. Relative Lack of RNG
Really, it's a selling point to me. I absolutely hate having to grind random drops.

6. Clarity
Almost all you need to know about your skills is spelled out in the tooltips. Nowadays, almost every mechanic has its own indicator and whenever that mechanic pops up, the same indicator is used, making for consistency. Moreover, many indicators like the stack marker make it very obvious what you are supposed to do. That eases the learning burden tremendously.

I like quite a bit:

1) Story. That's probably the biggest thing that keeps me around.

2) Aesthetics. The game looks good.

3) Stuff to do. Even though people gripe about lack of content I find I have the opposite problem. Once I stopped focusing only on endgame progression and dabbling in everything else the game had to offer I found myself with neverending amounts of stuff to do.

4) Fan service. I love Final Fantasy. This gives me all the Final Fantasy things. I'm ready for the FF7 crossover event when Remake hits. Sephiroth FATE {Yes Please.}

5) Jobs. I'm the most excited for new jobs in the expansion. Idk what it is about the FF Job system that I like so much but I love it. I will take everything to level cap eventually. There's no other franchise or MMO that I would do that with.

6) The lore, specifically the stuff that's not necessarily touched on in the story. All the tidbits you can get from the minon descriptions, triple triad cards, and sightseeing logs, it's great.

1) First and foremost, it's FINAL FANTASY! I am a huge FF fangirl and I play XIV for the same reason I played XI for 11+ years, and that's because it's a FF game where I can create my own character and play as them through the game's storyline.

2) Related to the above, it incorporated changes and improvements I always wanted in FFXI (such as more solo-centric gameplay, minimap, less skillbloat, being able to change class anywhere, mounts are default and not optional etc).

3) Speaking of which, I love mounts! Especially in Heavensward areas with flight - soaring across the snowswept wastes of the Western Highlands on the back of my griffin is just something else. And who does not like the FFVI magitek armour? :D

4) Glamour! Sure it's not perfect, but I'm thankful for it all the same - being able to change my gear's appearance to what I really like instead of being forced by stats to wear a butt-ugly piece of gear is a wonderful thing. It's true, glamour is the real endgame! And connected to that....

5) Pretty dresses! Yes I know not everyone are fashionistas, but I always lamented never having true dresses to wear in FFXI (everything were tops and pants if you were lucky) - and there are some truly gorgeous gowns and skirts in this game (my favourite being the Riviera Dress which is Enki's 'casual'/'at-home' wear, but the Wedding Dress, the Spring Dress, the High Houses Bustle etc are also gorgeous).

6) And speaking of the wedding dress, weddings! The Ceremony of Eternal Bonding is superior to FFXI's restricted system which I always lamented my character could never truly marry her beloved (my bf's character who also played as a kitty girl). Times have changed though and seeing my Enki finally officially marry her sweetheart Jing here in FFXIV (on my birthday too! :D) was such an amazing experience that we had been waiting so long for. :)

7) The music! Although 1.0's OST by Nobuo Uematsu was amazing (and a lot of his 1.0 tracks have returned for ARR), Masayoshi Soken has done a fantastic job filling those very lofty shoes as composer and sound designer. There might have been some slight missteps at first (such as tracks only being short and then fading to silence), but he is remarkably humble and has shown to listen to players and incorporate player feedback in how he implements the music and sound in the game. If you haven't already got them, get the OST albums, they're worth every gil! :D

8) The story - story is one of the most important aspects of the game to me (but I guess as I like to frequent the lore forum that should have been obvious ;)), and despite a little padding early on (especially during the Titan-fight lead up), the story's many twists, turns and revelations have kept me guessing and theorizing, and, more than that, I feel that my character actually is important to this world and was directly influencing Eorzea and Hydaelyn's situation and future, unlike in FFXI where I usually just felt like a sidekick along for the ride at best and a nameless, unappreciated errand girl at worst.

9) and finally, but by no means least, FFXIV ARR is a game where I feel I actually have a more personal connection to (albeit a very minor and trivial connection nonetheless) - as an Alpha and Beta tester (like a lot of players) I feel I contributed at least something to this game's success (as trivial as it was), but also I am a Legacy Member and thus my name is with the other 'Meteor Survivors' in the end credits - that connection is something that will never be broken.

It should go without saying, I love this game forever! :D

The story is a big plus, also the music (if it weren't for the stupid FATE notices and music). I also love the housing, the mounts, the minions, general aestethics (sp), character design and customization, the cities and towns, the outlands... I just love how the game looks and feels. Sometimes I get annoyed, impatient, even pissed off, but it's more the bad people I encounter than the game itself.
My favourite dungeons are Antitower, Arboretum and Shor Khai. They are just amazing, the ambience is stunning. The Vault is one of the best looking dungeons I have ever seen, it almost gives me the same feeling as when entering a church irl. Weeping City also is very likable, except the spider boss, I hate that one with a passion. Lalafells are soooo cute, I've only encountered one ugly female lalafell, and she made me laugh, that's how ugly she was. Didn't think it was possible. I find Miqotes the prettiest, and Roegadyns the most impressive. I've never had a game where I would stand for more than 15 minutes just staring at other PCs, all are so different and amazingly well done.

Also, the amount of content we have I personally think is huge. I keep seeing threads about how boring the game gets and that we need more content. But imo, this game has SO much to do, I mean, really, I think we got spoiled by Yoshi-P giving us so much to do every 3 months. I can understand getting bored some days, I get bored too, I get tired some days of grinding the same things over and over, but then I realize I don't really have to, I can do something else and the options are almost overwhelming. I'm happy with the current expert roulette; I understand it being just 2 dungeons, considering we are in an expansion with 6 zones, 8 if we include Ishgard and Ydillshire, when the old world had 3 expert dungeons scattered around 17 zones (not counting the cities).
All in all, I love it here. The good things definetly outweight the bad ones (I still think they should get rid of RMTs once and for all) and I hope Yoshi-P doesn't get discouraged by all the complaints.

The general aesthetic. Most of the armor designs (it's why I hate that they're class/job-restricted). The combat isn't really exciting, and most of the content is piss-easy, but some fights are fun and it's certainly pretty.

Also, I enjoy the lore. Not the story, which I find terribly cliche and contrived, full of pointless fetch quests, and with poorly developed characters, but I like the overall world. It's fun to RP in.

It's a good game if I just want to relax and check off some ticky boxes on a to-do list.

Oh, and I really like Au Ra, Elezen, and Miqo'te. xD

I personally enjoy the story line. I like the fact it feels like an RPG rather than a MMO. I like the layout of the actions. I like the actual action of each character. I like the world.

I really like the Miqo'te. （ＵωＵ） They're super cute and pretty.

So that would be aesthetics. This game is so beautiful, I can't help but enjoy looking at everything. The scenery, the characters, the outfits, the mounts, the minions, it goes on and on. I feel like there is a lot of love put into how nice this game looks. I also love how there is a variety of outfits for the characters in this game. I can change from a tin can tank to a beach bikini guy, something rich and fancy high born to casual street clothes. Glamor is a huge thing for me, and I'm frequently changing how my characters hair and outfit look all the time. I love being able to stop and take screenshots because the landscape is amazing.

Another thing I like, is that I can play so many classes on the same character. I don't feel like dpsing? Time to heal! I'm in the mood to gather? No problem! I love the flexibility and that I can choose to level up my classes so I don't need to level other characters just to craft something. Although I CAN if I want to! Alts are fun, I love making them. (Too much, actually)

The story! I love listening and talking to all the npcs, between quests and seeing them walk around the world. One of the reasons I made an alt was to re-experience the main story again, with being able to talk to and see how the world changes in regards to the npcs as I progress though the story. I love the easter eggs they put in, and giggle when I figure them out.

AND THE PUNS. Oh I love me some of those puns, hue hue hue. Quest names, FATEs, they can get a giggle out of me now and again even after I've seen them a few times.

I love all the stuff we get, and how often we get it. Updates are so frequent in my opinion, and I can see that the developers do listen to the users, and that means so much to me. While not everything is my cup of tea, I like that there is that variety of new things being added all the time, and its even gotten me to try new stuff because is there.

1. The story

2. The reliable stream of content we can count on.

3. The visuals.

4. The music.

5. All the final fantasy-ness.

6. Trials.

7. Coil Turn 9

8. When it makes fun of RPG/MMO conventions

The Primal Fights are pretty much what I like best right now. Right now me and a friend are taking on the challenge of doing all 2.x ex-primals as tank duo, and it's so much fun to learn the whole tactics until you do them automatically, and it doesn't even stop being challenging there.

FFXIV was my first MMO, so a lot of stuff I really like may sound strange to veterans. I've always been in love with FFXIV's ever-expanding story and world. It has been everything from astounding and exciting to predictable and cumbersome. I ended up feeling how I thought my character would feel, and even when doing the many fetch quests of ARR's storyline it felt more like I was having to deal with the realities of Eorzea rather than a boring fetch quest. It always felt like I had a reason to be doing these things. I had never played a game where I've been able to lose myself so deeply in the game's lore, and the fact that there's still so much to come is a constantly source of excitement. And of course, the game is beautifully designed with every area having its own unique designs, lore, and tons of enemies with great design that still evoke a very Final Fantasy feel whilst never feeling out-of-place or unneccesarily shoe-horned in purely for marketing purposes (well, generally speaking lol)

The story, the fact that it feels like final fantasy (in a different way than XI did), the nostalgia, the fan service. The great community (despite some of the crazy stuff you see around these parts, lol) and just the fact the game is flat out fun. There isn't a counterpart in the MMO market that gives me as much fun for the time spent in game. Also the accessibility of picking up the game and doing something. Whether it's switching to another class to finish getting all the needed cross class skills, grinding fates for an event/relic, jumping in a roulette, etc. it's all fast to pick up and do something. While my inner 15 year old grumbles about it being too "carebear" the rest of me is thankful for how quick it is to find something to do. I loved camping HNMs and all, but I don't think I'd have time for end game activities of that style now in my early 30s.

My favorite part of the FF MMOs (XI, XIV & ARR) from a core game concept viewpoint has been the fact that they keep the job change concept that is so core to the FF experience. You don't have to go create a new character if you want to try a different class; just change weapons.

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Originally Posted by cyborgmermaid

As someone who does 3D modeling work, the animation and character rigging in this game is absolutely astounding. To illustrate my favorite example of it, if you have a female character, switch to dark knight for a second. Bring out your weapon, and go into your idle stance. Now click on nearby targets. Instead of just having your character's head turn, her entire body will move, all the way down to the sword in her hands. The animators in this game are the true unsung heroes in my opinion. I've had numerous people who straight up hate this game concede and say "Okay yeah, the character models and animation are gorgeous."

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when I try to play other MMOs, this is immediately what ruins it for me. I love the life they put into our models, even though some can see them having "Dead eyes".

1) Story: This is something Square has been doing very well for years, so not surprisingly that I really do like to story.

2) No alt necessary: Having the ability to jump from one class to the next without having to create a new character.

3) Music: The score for this game hits all the right notes for me. From the relaxing score everywhere in Gridania, to the JRock inspired themes of some boss fights square gets it right.

4) Crafting: It's fun and much more involved than in other MMO's I've played, in recent memory that is. Additionally players can make any of the crafting classes their "main" class it's something that I haven't experienced since my SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) days.

5) Community: Final Fantasy just has a great gaming community to back it up, and this goes all the way back to FFXI.

1) How comfortable I feel with the UI and HUD and all that.
I never thought this would become such a big part for me, but if I am to spend hours upon hours with a game, I need the controls to work the way I want them to.
FFXIV gave me that option right from the get-go and only polished it even more since then. I just can't get into a lot of other MMOs anymore simply because the UI is so clunky and rigid and barely changeable to fit my needs.

2) Of course, like probably everyone else here, the story ;)
I actually like how content and areas are locked behind the story, makes it feel more meaningful. Of course, I also like how the story is absolutely on par with a single player FF game.

3) Just the general level of polish and attention to detail they are putting into every little thing. Make the world seem so real and a great interactive place to live in.
From natural looking animations to tiny details in world design, to how smooth playing feels in general. Just great.

4) The variety of content: I honestly am not someone who enjoys doing the same thing all the time. Aside from questing and raiding, there aren't many things to do in most MMOs.
I enjoy that everyday I can do something different in FFXIV, so I never really get bored. Having everything available on one character also helps with that.

5) That it is pay2play. I may have my gripes about how I don't find it okay to pay for a sub AND having to pay a lot extra to actually have access to everything, but I just sincerely hate all the need for shoving advertisements and the like in my face to buy stuff in f2p games, so I greatly apprechiate the lack of that in FFXIV.

I have zero interest in the story ....BUT...

What I like? :)

1. Graphics, the zones are beautiful, some characters are beautiful (not the gear but the characters themselves), visually I enjoy the look of characters and the landscapes/weather/some mounts etc.. They have done an excellent job in this area overall.

2. I like the tome system, 24 man raids and the occasional dungeon for the amount I want to play, it suits me perfectly. They do a nice job of them :)

3. I like that PVP is separate from PVE <-- one of the tipping factors for me tbh, much appreciated they keep content rewards /content requirements separate for each. Smart move.

4. Love flying!! and appreciate the fact the developers introduced it in the way they did, (not excessive grind to get it and it was smooth from day 1, excellent job!) hoping for swimming one day too!

5. I like that housing exists ...even though it needs a complete revamp.

An excellent housing design would keep my sub guaranteed more then any combat content could , it is to me ,far more interesting then combat (I like to be creative/artistic)...so for now...I keep busy with battle /crafting /other games (housing) while praying they improve things in the future. ;)

6 I like my chocobo. I don't know why..but I like him very much! I gather some mounts but always come back to my baby lol

7. I like the music.

Story
Character models
Music
The world building.. seriously this game's lore is crazy deep..

It's hard to pick a reason and to long to actually list them, but probably the world itself is what amazes me even after 3 years and how actually things change around even during the times of days ,recently I found out that the leader of the sky pirates goes around the hub talking to the NPCs around and his place should be affected by the time, to give an example.

Story
Ex Primal fights
The volume of different equipment
The Music
The Environments
The Graphical quality (There are some texturing issues, but overall its wonderful)
Moogles and Carbuncles
The depth of the Lore
The animations and effects
Random NPC storyline progression
The sense of humor portrayed in the names of quests, achievements, FATES and the like.

But most of all, the way the Devs are clearly passionate about delivering a game that they can be proud of, while trying their best to accommodate for the demands of the playerbase/s

1. PvP- so I can get my daily dose of Legal Lala- punching
2. Glams- Couldnt give a crap about stats with ffxiv's casual content easiness, but I'll grind an instance to hell and back if theres a cool glam involved. Wish theyd expand on the glam system a bit more too.
3. Landscapes- From the beautifully somber snow if Foundation to the godless, fallen halls of Haukke, I luv the games inside and outside landscapes. The Drav Forelands are probably my favorite zone.
4. Roe women- Biggest boobies in the game....muwahahaha~

1 - I love Final Fantasy, this game hits all the right notes for me with its fanservice and how it implements them into the world of eorzea
2 - I can play a game in the series I love with other people
3 - Music is on point, I'd love it if Soken was tasked with composing again for another Final Fantasy title

Those are very shallow reasons on the surface, I don't particularly like the story so that doesn't keep me and sure there's other FF titles like Record Keeper and the brand new World of Final Fantasy for my fan service fix but the way it's implemented in this game is endearing when they make things like the Warring Triad their own thing, even like how things that are blatant asset reuse is implemented so it's not out of place.

With that said, I'm glad my friend on steam convinced me to get it, I'm a long time FF fan who was turned off by the subscription model and I regret not trying it sooner, I was interested from all the trailers but I was just too stubborn to pay monthly but here I am now. I'm even buying this game for my friends birthday who is also an FF fan, can't wait to play with her.

The only thing I currently enjoy in FFXIV is the primal fights.

The Lore. I absolutely love the lore. You can tell the devs have put a LOT of effort into building the lore up in this world. They never ever just add a mob to just add it. Everything has a story.

Even the trash mobs and their names have a tie in to either our real world lore or the lore of the final fantasy series. Absolutely amazing.

This gets me hooked every time

Also, the music. Some of the music is just so beautiful. And the piano accompaniments...especially in Shor Khai. Wow.

I do have my name in a few of these threads where suggestions to improve are, though just because they do not implement them doesn't mean I do not stay around.

* I like the fact I can come back and catch up if I need to, though the more you tend to want to do the harder it is. Still, this game seems like if you aren't a player that wants to do everything and have everything at a playable level, it's not so hard to catch up. Though if you wanted to do everything, you would have to spend a lot of time. For someone like myself that only wants to do maybe two or three crafters, and have two or three jobs to play around with? It works out great.

* I do enjoy the dungeons in terms of beauty and music. The bosses are fun, though very forgiving.

* Content, even with all the negative aspects out there. There is a lot of content to go through. It just might not be for everyone (Gardening, PVP, T.T etc...) which limits play time.

* Lore - Even the fates, for the most part, have a good story to them. It is just hack and slash for the most parts. I do like the ones with different parts when NPC's help and fight with you.

* Though there is a space issue, I like my glamour. People can have very unique looks despite being the same job. Some are very generic though some are really creative! Or old school looks. I changed back to the original smn AF for 3.4, and I do miss it. Then I took a look at the Crimson gear, and now plan to change to that sometime soon! The original PLD AF, I adore.

Honestly, I like just about everything. The story, the depth of the lore, the absolutely stunning scenery (this is the first MMO I've ever played where I actually stop to take screenshots of landscapes and have actually used them as my PC desktop from time to time), the gorgeous character models, the small nods to the roleplaying community (like how our characters actually look at things they have targeted), the content, the fucking MUSIC hnnnggg...

All in all, FFXIV is a fantastic MMO experience and it's been worth every penny.